Hand Painted Furniture Archives | Page 12 of 27

Hand Painted Furniture

buying & selling antiques

the fabric & Lucketts furniture

Do you remember when I wrote about my guest room a few weeks ago? I showed a scrap of fabric that I’ve been holding in my stash for about 12 years. I love this fabric and it was, unfortunately, discontinued. I held onto my one yard remnant, feeling it was too precious to even use. I laid it out on the guest bed as I was playing with fabric options for pillows and the duvet cover. The fabric looked so beautiful with the hand painted bed, but I didn’t have enough to make much…maybe a pillow. And I couldn’t find the fabric anywhere. Well, my blog readers came through. Suzanne came through, to be more specific. She had a few yards of the fabric in her stash and, more than that, was willing to sell all of it to me. It came last week and I will admit to hugging

April 30, 2014 29 Comments

Before and Afters

1800's Linen Dresser

I hope you’re ready for some furniture makeovers, because you’re going to be seeing a lot over the next few weeks! I’ve got quite a collection growing for Lucketts. Here’s the 1800’s dresser with the amazing carved handles that I finished yesterday… It was pretty rough when I bought it, but I could see the potential… It’s painted in MMSMP Linen. The wood was very soft and porous, so it absorbed the paint well without any bonding agent. I distressed the edges and, as I mentioned in yesterday’s post, added some additional texture by applying more paint in patches and drying it quickly with a hair dryer. This lent a subtle cracked and crusty look to the paint that gives it a sense of age. For the styling of this piece, I kept it monochromatic and simple with an ironstone bowl filled with wooden croquet balls and some leather

April 16, 2014 26 Comments

Hand Painted Furniture

…in the works

This is when blogging and doing everything else at the same time is hard. I have a bunch of things in the works, but nothing ready for that beauty shot that makes the before and after posts so fun to share (and read, I’m sure!) So, today I’m showing a few pieces that are in the works in the basement. I finished this 1800’s dresser today in MMSMP Linen with a stained wood top… Cari prepped the piece for me and got it to this stage… I stained the top and added some more texture to the finish by layering more Linen paint in a thick mix in strategic areas and then applied heat with a hair dryer to create crazing. It’s very subtle in this finish, but looks really cool… Notice it around the key holes and at the bottom of the drawer? I used a mix of Antique

April 15, 2014 21 Comments

Hand Painted Furniture

Cabinet up for Auction

I was recently asked if I could donate something to a local private school for a fundraising auction event. I sort of hemmed and hawed over it and dragged my feet. For some funny reason, I felt like I didn’t really have anything to donate that people would want to buy. I know. A lot of you probably want to smack me in the head through the computer, since anything I put in my shop sells out in minutes and my booths at markets are wiped out in an almost comical way. I think that’s because in the blog world, in this little niche, I’m a “somebody”. Outside of that, I just go to the grocery store and church and my kid’s school and I’m just Marian. Well, most of the time. My two worlds are colliding more and more frequently, but Miss Mustard Seed used to be my secret-to-people-who-know-me-in-real-life-alter-ego.

March 6, 2014 16 Comments

Hand Painted Furniture

Antiquing & Waxing Video Tutorial

I had a chance to finish the footboard and rails of the “Bavarian” style bed I’ve been working on for our guest bedroom. You can check out part 1 and part 2 to see how the bed got to this stage. I’m excited to get it set up in the guest room and take some pictures of it in natural lighting, but here are some I snapped in the workshop. And to show you the process I used on this piece, Jeff and I made an antiquing wax tutorial… Jeff was a busy guy today. Not only did he make the video, but he made great progress on the trim in the family room… Tonight all of the boys were at Awana, so that’s my night to get a few extra hours of work in (or sometimes just enjoy a movie and a quiet house). Tonight, I filled and primed

February 26, 2014 24 Comments

Guest Room

Painted Guest Room Bed |

The weather has been amazing over the weekend! Just a couple of sunny days in the 40’s and 50’s and I’m ready to throw open the windows and go out for a hike. There’s still a lot of snow on the ground, though, so I had to settle for a walk instead of a hike. It’s given me the shot of energy I need to finish home and work projects. I was moving furniture around and cleaning out closets. That’s what warmer temperatures and sunshine does for me, so I’m ready for Spring. Bring it. So, here’s where we left the bed yesterday. It’s fully painted, but the paint looks pretty bright and a little flat…definitely not like it was painted a couple hundred years ago like the inspiration bed. It’s the distressing and antiquing that’s going to bring this piece to life. For distressing, I didn’t want to take

February 23, 2014 92 Comments

Hand Painted Furniture

Painted Guest Room Bed |

Remember the guest bed I bought a few months ago? My mom and I found it at an antique store for $100. It needed a bit of gluing, but only on the decorative parts. The bed is very solid… …and I was totally in love with the curved footboard. Since 2002, I’ve been holding onto a magazine with a picture of this bed in it… I’ve always wanted to replicate it if I ever found the right bed. I knew I could paint the $100 bed in a similar fashion to finally have my own version of the bed in the magazine for my guest room. I started out by painting it in one coat of MMSMP French Enamel with the Bonding Agent added. Once the French Enamel was dry I started to add the other colors…Apron Strings, Mustard Seed Yellow and Linen. It was a little scary at first,

February 22, 2014 89 Comments

Before and Afters

Painting the Dining Chairs

I have been looking for a sturdy pair of oval back chairs to use in my dining room for years. They were always too expensive or too rickety for practical, regular use. So, I was ready to buy some from Restoration Hardware, but the day I was planning to press the “purchase” button, I found a set of four chairs on Craig’s List. Woohoo!! You can read the full story HERE. They were perfect, but they were maroon. Not being able to stomach stripping four caned chairs, I took them to have them professionally stripped, which cost $50/chair and saved me hours and hours. I’ve had them in their stripped, raw state for a few months now and today I started to finish them. These chairs were my inspiration… (photo source) I really liked the chairs raw, but they were a little rough and some of the old white and

November 5, 2013 58 Comments

I’m Marian, a painter, writer, and lover of all things creative. From art and antiques to home projects and everyday life, I share my journey in hopes of inspiring you to embrace your own creativity and make beauty in the spaces you live.

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