Ok, all of you crackle lovers out there can relax. I actually like and have used crackle. But, I hope we can all agree that crackle in the wrong hands, on the wrong piece of furniture, with the wrong colors can be terrible. I found this vanity at a thrift store sitting outside with a $15 sticker on it. It was in very sturdy condition, had dovetailed drawers, and the cabinets doors worked great. It was just ugly. Someone had done a white and dark blue crackle finish with cheap brass hardware. Now, I recognize that someone put some time into this piece, but it DID end up at a thrift store, so they couldn’t have loved it that much! Anyway, it turned out the vanity was a yard sale leftover and had just been dropped off. It had not been priced by the thrift store (thank goodness), so I

One quick note – Make sure you check out the great 100th post giveaway at Rose Petals & Rust Are you sitting down? Prepare yourself for something truly horrible. This was my master bedroom when we first moved to our home 3 years ago…yikes. Where to begin? I inherited two-tone mauve walls with a chair height border. From my old house I brought a red, yellow, and green french country sort of theme. I do not recommend these colors all together in one room. I’m surprised the universe as we know it didn’t split apart. And here’s another corner of the room… Like all of my rooms, this is not the AFTER after, but it’s much better. This has been a tough room to decorate. It’s long, narrow, has 4 doors, and one awkwardly placed window. This is my husband’s dresser that’s in the corner in the before picture. It

This was a typical yard sale/thrift store table that you can find for about $1.00-$5.00 a piece. I have 2 others in my basement that are very similar. Usually they look tired, dated, and have damaged finishes. This one has such pretty legs that I didn’t even notice that when I bought it. I just can’t pass up a $5.00 table. For less than a Big Mac meal I can have a piece of furniture! I decided to jump on the chalk board band wagon, but I wanted to do it my way. I thought a modern take on the doily would be fun, so I made the edges lacey and feminine. Here’s how you can do it, too… 1.) Hunt. Find a cheap-o table…this may be as simple as shopping through your own house! If you don’t have one, I bet it won’t take long to find one at

This piece is special to me because it was my very first furniture job for a client. It was a challenge to blend her tastes and ideas with my own, but it was a great learning experience and I love the result. I didn’t think this piece was that bad to begin with. It was in great condition, the hardware was nice, the paint color wasn’t bad, but the client hated it and wanted color. We talked about purple and burgundy and finally settled on a rich red. She showed me some flowers out of a gardening book that she liked and wanted me to use those as inspiration for the decorative painting. This is the sample board I presented to her. (For those who are interested in decorative painting, sample boards are a great way to practice and make sure you love it before you dive in. The boards

Remember this table from last week? You can read about the transformation process here: https://missmustardseed.com/2009/09/this-table-deserves-better/ I finally finished it yesterday! This poor little table had a horrible paint job that did not do it justice and this is what it looks like now. (And in case you’re wondering…no, I do not paint everything in blues & aquas! I’ll post some other colors soon.) I painted it in ProClassic Semigloss paint in Frost from Sherwin Williams and then added some decorative painting to highlight the details of the table. This is a great example of how decorative painting does not have to be complicated. Even if you’re not an “artist” you can do this! I used one color (Victorian Teal by Delta) and kept it simple. After the decorative painting, I mixed a small amount of paint with some MinWax water based Polycrylic to make a glaze. I then rubbed the

This is a really nice antique table that my clients inherited, but it has seen better days. The table had a wicked wobble, an ill-fitted drawer, was slightly askew, and had some poor repair work done to it. They wanted it painted a bright white for a fresh, new look. I’ll spare the details of the painting process, since I have shared that in an earlier post. We glued the loose joints, replaced the bottom shelf (which had a split in it and was nailed in) and squared and glued the drawer. The new shelf is held in place by biscuits and glue, so there aren’t any nail or screw holes. Now it’s super sturdy. No more wobble. Looks like extensive surgery with all of those clamps, but it’s really not that complicated. I sanded, deglossed, and primed the piece with my usual Sherwin Williams water based bonding primer. Normally

First of all, I want to apologize to all of the people out there who like this table in school bus yellow, ketchup red, and I’m not sure what shade of blue. What was the person who painted this thinking? This table has beautiful lines and it deserves soooo much better. I had to rescue it from it’s current fate of looking like an example of the primary color wheel for a kindergarten class. I sanded it down with my handy Porter Cable palm sander to rough up the glossy finish, but also to smooth out the brush marks left by the previous painter. I do not enjoy sanding, especially table legs and such, so I hand sanded only the areas where there were old drip marks or brush strokes. I then used Krud Kutter Gloss Off to provide a clean surface with “tooth”, so the primer would have good

~BEFORE~ This side table is a $5 yard sale find. The finish was in rough shape, but it was solid, made well, and had a good shape…so, sold! I normally go full out feminine on my furniture, but the lines on this piece didn’t lend itself to scrolls and flowers,so I went with a colorful funky folk art theme that would look so cute in a country modern kid’s room. This piece is currently for sale at my retailer in Gettysburg, PA if you’ve gotta have it! ~AFTER~