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Furniture Makeovers

All Things Home

revamped balance scale

When shopping for pieces, I try to look past things that aren’t my taste cosmetically, like color and fabric, and try to envision what the piece will look like when I make it my taste.   In the case of this scale, the bright yellow just wasn’t my taste.  I love yellow, but this yellow was pretty in-your-face and I felt like it clashed with the mellow brass. I obviously wasn’t alone in thinking this, because the scale was marked 75% off of its original price.  That made it perfect for me, because I’m a girl who likes a bargain and I know how to paint things! Now, I use milk paint 99% of the time, but this piece needed something else.  The shape would’ve been a royal pain to paint with a brush and I thought an enamel finish with a little bit of gloss would look sharp.  I ordered Krylon

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All Things Home

a total heart purchase…

With milk paint and distressing and the right combination of techniques, one can give a pretty convincing aged look to a piece of furniture.  But, none of that can compare to what time can do. And time did a beautiful job on this piece… It’s perfectly dented, scratched, cracked, crazed, and worn in all the right places. And this was a total heart purchase.  Not a head one.  I probably won’t make any money on it and it might not even sell, but that’s okay.  I just knew that this was a special piece. Oh, that blue/gray paint!!  It was probably the paint that did it for me. It does have a few unfortunate spots of spray paint on the interior of the doors and some superfluous nails that need to pulled out of the back, but a little TLC will remove those “modern additions” and let the old girl show off

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Before and Afters

the cottage bed reveal

The cottage bed is all finished, assembled, styled, and photographed.  It even got its own little room in the corner of my studio. I just used things I had on hand to create an eclectic, cottage-y, bedroom, a ‘tween girl who was in my imagination. The color of the bed is a custom mix of Kitchen Scale and Boxwood from the MMS Milk Paint line and it was finished in Tough Coat to seal the chipping paint. The needlepoint was made by Jeff’s grandmother and I purchased the German oil painting off of Etsy a few years ago.  Those are both just props for the shoot, but most of the other pieces will be for sale at Lucketts. I will apologize to all of my perfectionists out there.  I didn’t try to straighten out the wood applique on the headboard.  I fix things that are structural or functional issues and, of course,

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Furniture Makeovers

cottage bed update

 I finished the twin cottage bed today and I had so much fun styling it to shoot. Let me back up, though. We painted it in two coats of a custom mix of Kitchen Scale and Boxwood from the MMS Milk Paint line.  After the second coat, the milk paint started chipping in certain places.  It pulled up the pale pink paint as well, exposing the wood underneath.  I don’t think I could’ve planned it better!  Milk paint is always full of happy accidents.  (Well, most of the time!) Since some of the paint was so loose, we vacuumed it off and then distressed with 120 grit sand paper.  I mostly hit the chipping areas and lightly distressed the edges. Because it was chippy, we finished it off with a coat of Tough Coat, which is a great sealer. I made a quick Facebook live post, showing how I brush it on and talking

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Artistic Endeavors

furniture updates…

I have spent the better part of this week playing catch-up and getting back into the swing of things after my trip.  I had a full day in the studio on Wednesday, though, and it was so great to be in my creative space again.  I cranked my music, got some things checked off the to-do list, and worked on some furniture pieces for Lucketts. Remember my pair of Frenchies? Here is how they are looking now… Kriste stripped them while I was away and she painted the frames in MMS Milk Paint Linen.  They still need one more light coat, so the finish is a bit more uniform before I distressed.  I picked out an antique windowpane toweling fabric for them, though, and I can’t wait to see how they look in their new digs. Another piece in the works is this hutch top and table base.  They were two

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All Things Home

the French twins of Lucketts 2017

It has become a Lucketts tradition, it seems, to have a twin pair of French-style chairs at the Miss Mustard Seed booth!  Well, we do not want to break that trend, now, do we? As a recap, here is the pair from 2014… …from 2015… …and from 2016… And here is the pair for 2017 (before their makeover, of course)… They are a new-ish pair, so they are in good, sturdy condition, and they sit a little higher, making them ideal for pulling them up to a table.  The frames are nice as they are, but they look a little too “factory finished”, so I will most likely paint them.  I’m going to wait to decide until they are stripped and I “try on” some fabric to see what I want to do.  I always base the wood/paint and color decisions on the fabric I’m going to use. Now, I almost didn’t

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Before and Afters

a million tiny drawers

Okay, so the post title is a bit of an exaggeration.  These little handmade hardware cabinets have just 17 drawers between them, but it seems like a lot more than that! Do you remember what they looked like before?  Here’s a refresher… Clearly, some guy (or perhaps a gal) made them for a workshop space and have gone in and out of those drawers with greasy fingers.  There was something that spoke to me, though…the crude design and all of the imperfections and irregularities.  They definitely needed to be freshened up, though! We painted them in two coats of Farmhouse White from the MMS Milk Paint line, lightly distressed them, letting the paint chip where it wanted, and then applied Tough Coat to finish. I like that they look fresh, but still old.  Well worn and well loved. The inside of the drawers looked a little grubby, though, and I had

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Before and Afters

farm table & hitchcock chairs

Another piece is finished and ready to wait in the wings until the Lucketts Spring Market in May!  It seems so close, yet so far… Anyway, the finished piece is this antique farmhouse table… …and, though they are not 100% finished, these antique Hitchcock-style chairs I purchased last fall… For the chairs, I decided to tape off the rushing and just paint the frames in MMS Milk Paint Grain Sack.  Kriste worked on applying the coats of paint over a few days, since chairs are tedious!  It’s best to work on them in doses. (As an aside, a few people have asked about Kriste.  Well, she is now six months pregnant and is expecting a boy!  So, she is mostly doing computer work, pricing, etc. and not as much crawling around on the floor, sanding, etc.  Jenn and my mom have come in a few times to help with that sort of

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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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