Furniture Makeovers Archives | Page 83 of 110

Furniture Makeovers

Before and Afters

Grain Sack Upholstery

I love using antique European grain sacks for upholstering furniture. It gives an immediate character to the piece of furniture and it’s very durable, which is important in a house with two young boys. So, when I acquired this pair of chairs, I knew I wanted to use a grain sack to cover them. The pair of chairs cost $95 and the grain sack was $40. Here’s the result of my $135 and a few hours of work… I know. I love them. Here’s what they looked like before… I left the paint finish exactly as it was. I wouldn’t have picked black for them, but when I set them in my space, they looked great. So foam, batting and the grain sacks were all they needed. Fortunately, the foam and batting came with the chairs, so I didn’t have to buy that, but I did have

September 7, 2012 No Comments

Furniture Feature Friday – Favorite & a Link Party

Good evening all of my furniture-loving friends. I finally had my act together today and was able to look through the entries from last week. Instead of picking three favorites, as I usually do, I just picked one. That wasn’t out of laziness or for lack of time, but because this space blew me away. All of the custom touches and personalized details…I loved it and felt like it deserved a full feature. Check out this kitchen by Angie from Knick of Time. You can see the before HERE, but I can tell you it’s amazing how much this kitchen has been transformed. I love all of the thoughtful displays and the way Angie and her husband worked with the imperfections and quirks of the space and the salvaged materials they were working with and made everything functional and very vintage. It looks like this kitchen has been at work

September 7, 2012 No Comments

buying & selling antiques

Milk Paint at Lucketts!

On Thursday, I drove down to Lucketts with Faith and my husband and we worked on getting my space in the lobby looking great and filled with milk paint. I’ve been in the lobby for a couple of months, but it’s been hard for me to get settled there. With the milk paint finally in transit from Canada, I asked two design gurus, Suzanne and Amy of Design House fame, to help me with the layout of the space. Suzanne traded a slim, glass topped shirt counter for my HUGE hardware counter and she also loaned me the hutch on the back wall. Soooooo much better. I’m selling the two tall bookcases, so the back wall can be a spot for furniture pieces. I’m hoping to figure out how to maximize that little nook and fill it with cozy furnishings and accessories and hang some of my hand painted

September 1, 2012 No Comments

Furniture Feature Friday – Excuses & a Link Party

I didn’t have the time to pick favorites today because… …I was moving all of my Milk Paint into my space at Lucketts. I was so busy trying to get it all done that I didn’t get to have a teary moment until I looked at this picture. God has really blessed this endeavor. Wow. …and I’m late because… I was working on the new MMS Milk Paint website! I still have a lot of work to do to get all of the information posted and all of the retailers listed, but it’s a great start! …and I didn’t turn in my book report because my dog ate it. Here are the rules for our furniture get-together… 1.) Your post has to be about furniture. Please, please, please…just furniture. If you find your link has been deleted, it’s not because I’m mean, it’s because your post was not about

August 31, 2012 No Comments

Before and Afters

say hello to “grain sack”

I don’t know why I left this piece sitting in my basement for so long! It was finished a couple of weeks ago and I finally hauled it up today for a photo shoot. I knew I would have fun with it and I did. It’s definitely a favorite. Say hello to the MMS Milk Paint color “Grain Sack”… Here’s the piece before… …and this piece gets better when you start opening it up… I have a wee bit of a crush on this piece and the play of colors, chippiness and wood. (The interior is painted in Shutter Gray, by the way.) So, why did I call this color grain sack? It may look white-ish, but it’s more of a neutral gray, like a nubby old European grain sack. I not only love this color straight up,

August 30, 2012 No Comments

buying & selling antiques

doing something, a counter swap & a sale

The blog world is wonderful, but there are downsides. One of those that I’ve been ignoring for a long time is sites that steal content from bloggers. I’m not talking about the people who use a picture or highlight a favorite project, but people who rip off entire posts and either claim them as their own or “collect all of your favorite blogs in one place.” Those sites might seem convenient for readers, but it is theft. Can you imagine if I gathered all of my favorite magazine articles, cut the pages out, scanned them, put together my own magazine and then made money from ads and subscriptions claiming I’m offering this great service of “collecting all of your favorite magazine articles in one magazine”? Well, that is what is happening to bloggers. We work hard to create our content and then it’s swiped automatically from our feeds and published without our knowledge

August 29, 2012 No Comments

Miscellaneus

it is time

On April 27, 2012 (four months ago to the day), I announced that I was going to have my own line of milk paint. It was my pie-in-the-sky-dream-come-true. Four months later, I received my first shipment of milk paint. Not just any milk paint. MY milk paint. Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint. In the boxes and labeling and packaging that I carefully selected and hmmm’d and haw’d over. In the custom colors I mixed and designed. I sat cross-legged on the floor, pricing each box. Just by myself. In a bandanna and some sweats splattered with paint. There wasn’t a big ribbon to cut or a ceremony and I wasn’t sipping an IZZE soda while a team of people I don’t know priced it for me. It was just me in my living room with my paint. It was a sweet moment as I looked at the stack of boxes. It’s

August 27, 2012 No Comments

Miss Mustard Seed's Milk Paint

Get the “Chippy” Look Video Tutorial & Junk Bonanza Giveaway!

I finally got around to editing and uploading my latest milk paint video… I talk through how to get the “chippy” look on pieces and answer some common questions about the process. Enjoy! (If you usually read my posts through e-mail, click over to my blog to watch the video.) If you’d like to see my other videos, head over to my You Tube channel. More to come… Second, there’s an event you may have heard of… Junk Bonanza. One day I will go. Oh yes. One day I will go. Until then, if your calendar is free September 13-15, 2012, you may be able to go to Junk Bonanza for FREE! The annual Junk Bonanza brings together more than 140 juried vendors of select vintage treasures, junk and antiques and is in Canterbury Park in Shakopee, Minn. The winner of this giveaway will receive: ~ 2 VIP tickets, which

August 25, 2012 No 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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