Front Doors Finally Painted

This is the not so delightful color that our front doors have been for the past year and a half.

And the outside view.

If you look at the following, you’ll see where I’m headed.

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 It took a long time for me to get brave enough to do this.  For some reason, even though we built the entire house, made all the decisions (including all of the paint colors and doing all of the painting ourselves), I found this choice very difficult- rivaled only by my agony in choosing kitchen cupboards.

Even after I had found the perfect paint and the perfect color, I was still nervous about doing it.

It’s the front of our house, for pete’s sake!

Here’s how it turned out…

I used Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Primer Red.  It took 3 coats to get full coverage but it still only took barely over a quart of paint to get both doors, both sides, painted.

See the complete patio makeover here.

We love it!  What color is your front door?

Hunting Vintage- End Tables

Furniture is probably one of the most difficult things for me to find.  I don’t like a lot of the contemporary styles of furniture around and I prefer a more eclectic and rustic look anyway, so vintage is always preferable, both aesthetically and for the pocketbook.

For bedside tables in our master, we use some vintage items that belonged to my grandparents.

The first is a milking stool that was my grandfather’s.  It was always in my grandparent’s house when I was a kid and we used it as a stepping stool.  It had a black top and white legs then.

When our son was little I had painted it blue and green to match his dresser and he used it as a stepping stool in our bathroom.

Here is is primed.

The yellow table beside it sits on my husband’s side of the bed.  The crate I still haven’t done anything with.  Any suggestions?

The chippyness was great on that one, but the yellow, not so much.

Here’s how they look beside our bed with new coats of Annie Sloan in Old White and Country Grey layered and then distressed with a bit of wax to finish.

We are just starting to think of ways to revamp our bedroom, so our bed will be changing sometime soon, but the bedside tables will definitely stay the same.

I love that they aren’t symmetrical and that they give us just enough surface to put the essentials on.  We had bedsides with drawers in the trailer, and they got so full of junk!!!  This way, we are forced to keep things fairly neat.  But, to be honest, my side (this one) usually does have a book or two on it.  And no flowers.

Shaun’s side has a couple of little shelves.  We are looking for a new clock right now.  This one is getting so that the snooze button won’t work.  And that’s just not really ok.  And I would like one a little nicer looking now…

Still a tiny bit of yellow showing through.

The quilt was our wedding gift from my aunt.  Can you believe she made that?  It is one of our treasures.

Vintage love.  Love that they are recycled and that we use them everyday.  Love how they look.  Love the history to them and that they belonged to my grandmas and grandpas.

Found Art

Remember when we found that great treasure trove of old National Geographic books?  Look here to see that post.  Guess what my mom also found at the same time?  Some really beautiful art.

Original pastels given by her great- uncle to my grandparents when they got married in 1946.

These were always displayed at their house.  I remembered them as soon as I saw them.  Isn’t it funny how art can evoke such strong memory?  Mom didn’t have wall room in her house, so they had been stored in the basement for the last 10 years or so.

Here they are up in my living room.

See how I’m trying to cleverly disguise our air filter behind the plant?  No one would ever see that, right?

The art in our house is very eclectic.  We don’t choose art from a particular movement or style- we choose art that has significance to us in some way.  Not totally clashing with the rest of the house is ok, too.  But it certainly doesn’t have to be matchy.  And I would never buy a whole decorator’s set of art or display materials.  I like to build things up slowly over time.

You can see here that in one small area of our house, we have some very different styles of art.

We have a Ted Harrison style done by our son who was 9 at the time.  A Jeff Daychief print entitled For All Children that my mom gave to me (we are both teachers so that is the significance there), and the pastels.  All very different.  All very beautiful.

And I think it works for us.

What kind of art are you drawn to?

Sewing Desk

We were given some antiques by my husband’s parents a few weeks back for our housewarming gift from them.  A gorgeous smoking table (see here if you are wondering what the heck that is), a curio cabinet, and an old desk.

I had big plans for the desk.  Which included a little meeting with some Annie Sloan Chalk Paint to get rid of the fake wood panelling paint job that someone had done on it.  Why?  Why would anyone do that?

You can see the top was pretty worn, too.  So my plan was to use my AS in Country Grey and then stain the top.

Here it is finished.  I took it all apart and sprayed the hardware and handles.

I love this paint.

Then I painted the whole thing with one coat (one!!!!!) of ASCP in Country Grey.  Waxed it in clear and then put a little of the dark wax on in places.  Sanded and stained the top and slide out extension, and that was it!

It gives it great texture.

But this desk isn’t all about looks.  It has many hidden surprises.

A drawer to file paper.  Or, in my case, probably felt or material.

I’ll probably use the pen drawer for fabric markers and sewing notions I use all the time.  My pins, tape measure, seam ripper.  Seam ripper…  gotta keep that handy!

On the left, the bank of drawers is actually a cupboard door front which opens to this.  A slide out extension.  You pull it out.

And the mechanism behind allows it to do this.

I think this was originally meant for your typewriter.

Now I know there are a lot of talented decorator/ bloggers out there who would have taken pictures of this desk styled to the hilt.  And it would have looked beautiful.  But this desk, for me, is becoming my sewing table.  It is going in a little craft room I have.  It is basically a big closet in our spare bedroom.

Lots of room for a desk.  And these awesome shelves.

Yes.  That’s a big roll of rawhide.  Doesn’t everyone have a stash of this?  And yes, my shelves need major organization.  That another post (or 2 or 3).

I love my little craft room.  It makes me happy.  And this desk is so much better than our old kitchen table, which is what I was using before.

So…. this is how I’m going to decorate my new/ antique sewing desk.  With my Grandma’s sewing machine that’s gone a million miles for me.

And with her mom’s, my great-grandma’s, white chair.

If anyone calls, I’ll be in my sewing room.  Messing around with the seam ripper…

Barn Farm Western

Ooooh.  This one was made for us.

We have quite a few things around the house that qualify for Donna’s latest Saturday Nite Special on Barn, Farm, and Western things.  Some of the items from last week’s post on Funky Junk Inspiration would work.

Like

The double boiler we use for wood.  Every farm had one of these at one point.

Or how about this?

An oil burning lamp was always on hand, too.

Or this

Wool blankets were essential as well.  Western, no?  Yes.  But around here, we call that sort of style Aboriginal.  Because my husband and son are just that.

A modern version of an oil-burning lamp.

And remember my grandma who used to write poetry for us all?  Well.  She was a painter too.  All the grandkids got to choose the painted cream can they wanted from her.  And I chose this.  Cream cans used to litter the farms.  Now people use them to decorate.  We have a couple more rusting away in our shed.  I may work up the nerve to paint one, one day.  Or I may bring a rusty one in and leave it as is.

How about a stump end table?  A sheepskin?

But probably the most barn/ farm/ western thing in our house is this.

The Navajo pattern couches?  Yes.  The farm table and benches?  Yes.  But, I think the old barn wood flooring takes first place.  It even has patches of old red barn paint on it.  Nail holes and impressions.  Saw marks.  Old boot prints in oil.  We love it.

So if anyone can figure out how to make one of those wooden barn stars- I’m in.  We love barn, farm, and western/ Aboriginal around here.  I guess you can probably tell.

Just wait.  I haven’t even started with the pile of antlers in the garage…

New Antiques

Last week, we went to my husband’s parent’s place to help them cut down some trees from their rental property yard and to pick up some furniture that they were giving us for a housewarming present.

We also took them the leftover drywall from our house build (see the great garage clean-up posts soon to come).  We had a trailer load of drywall (man that stuff if heavy) and we had to stop on the road as, of course, it started to sprinkle, and, of course, we hadn’t put the tarp over it.  Oh well.  I had a mountain view while I waited.

It was a lot of work for the husband and his brother- running the chainsaw and jackhammer (also doing driveway work).  Here it is lunch time.

Our son riding his bike through the destruction.  Of course we hauled the bike an hour and a half away when we are also going to be hauling back wood and big pieces of furniture.  Wouldn’t you?

We walked around the neighborhood and found a yard sale where I bought 2 really old books (A Grimm’s Fairy Tales and a Sherlock Holmes) for a buck each.

Finished in town so then we drove out to his parent’s house to load up the furniture.

We also had the trailer behind us loaded up with those trees that were cut down.  Firewood for the winter!

A view of the sky on the way home.

Our treasures back at home waiting to be worked on.

This one is getting ASCP in Country Grey with a stained top.  It’s going to be my sewing/ craft table.

This one is a curio cabinet and is going to sit by our kitchen table as a sideboard.  I’ll now be on the hunt for ironstone to put in it- by the way.  It is getting Old White with a Primer Red inside.

And this one is a bit of a mystery.  My father-in-law says that it is a smoking/ card table.  It does the coolest thing.  Wait until I show you!  I am not allowed to paint it.  Not that I would want to.  It’s beautiful already.  But I do have an idea for a project to put ON it.

A lot of projects to do.  Can’t wait to share.

Have a good weekend everyone!