Waterfall dressing table & Annie Sloan Chalk Paint

I have many irons in the fire right now.  However, I wanted to take a minute and show you a piece I recently completed.

I purchased this waterfall dressing table from one of my favorite pickers, Gail, of Blue's Junk & Primitives.  She finds the best "rusty junk".  

This piece was in great shape structurally, but the finish left little to be desired.  A light sanding to knock off the flaking finish and some Annie Sloan Chalk Paint to the rescue!  

 I chose Paris Grey and Old White for the dressing table.

The handles are some type of metal that had a brass-type overlay.  They also had a little surface rust to them.  I gave them a good cleaning and they just weren't very pretty.  So I decided to paint them in Paris Grey and give them a white-washed look with Old White.  I finished them in Soft Wax and a very light coat of Dark Wax.

I gave it some light distressing to give it that well-loved and worn feel.

 I used a stencil on each end just to give it a little extra "bling".

And here she is in all her lovely chalk paint glory!  

She's come a long way from her old neglected self.  I think she would be great as a table behind someone's sofa, a great little laptop desk, or as a dressing table in a little girl's room.

So what do you think of this piece?  Would you have chosen these colors?

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Dyson Allergy Cleaning Kit

Last night, my sweet husband surprised me with the Dyson Allergy Cleaning Kit.  I know some of you are probably thinking, "that's no gift", but I'm all about practical gifts.

We have all hardwood and tile floors in our house so instead of the dust settling in the carpet, it settles on all of my furniture and all along the baseboards.  My Dyson vacuum came with some great attachments, but it didn't have anything to dust furniture with.  I don't like using the smelly sprays that just push the dust around either.  So while searching online, I came across the Dyson Allergy Cleaning Kit.  The answer to my dusting woes!  The $70 price tag quickly dashed my hopes.  

For the last year I've thought about that kit and again dismissing it because of the price tag.  After having our return air duct moved to the ceiling last week, my house was covered in drywall dust.  I casually mentioned that it sure would be nice to have the dusting attachment for my Dyson to clean up all the drywall dust and then never gave it a second thought.

Last night my husband and my son ran to Wal-Mart to pick up a few items.  After doing the bedtime routine with our son, my husband came walking into my office with a large box containing my new cleaning kit!  I was so excited!  He had ordered it from walmart.com  and had it shipped site-to-store.  The best part?  The price!  Wal-Mart has it for $41.00!!!  I didn't even know Wal-Mart carried Dyson products.  By the way, it is still $69.99 on Best Buy's website.

I'm sure you are all wondering how well it works.  Well, I have a black entertainment center and there wasn't a hint of dust left behind.  No smearing or pushing the dust around or dust floating in the air.  It's all nicely contained in the Dyson canister.  I highly recommend this to anyone who despises dusting as much as I do!

***Disclaimer:  I was not compensated in any way for this review.  My husband purchased this kit as a gift for me.  This is my own personal review of this product.

It's been a year...

since my last post.  That's kind of crazy!  I feel like I'm still going through a transitional period.  Still getting used to being the mom of a preschooler.  Driving back and forth to the next town over for school.  Trying to manage/balance my time between my son and my new business.

Yes, that is correct.  I've started a new business adventure.  Everyone knows I have a love of vintage and antique furniture.  I also have a new love.  Annie Sloan Chalk Paint.  I decided to merge my two loves and open up The Treasured Chest where I refurbish and paint vintage and antique furniture.

The big launch of The Treasured Chest will be on April 27, 2013, at Blue's Spring Gathering in Creal Springs, Illinois.  The Spring Gathering will host almost 70 vendors featuring handmade items, antiques, primitives, and good old rusty junk.  It's gonna be a great time!  So be sure to mark your calendars, you don't want to miss this!

Be sure to stop by the blog, I promise there will be many new posts featuring all of the pieces I'm currently working on.

Craigslist Wine Rack Update

So it's only taken me 7 months to finally finish my wine rack. We had a busy fall with Mini DIY starting preschool and then all the illnesses that come along with preschool germs.

A couple weekends ago, I decided enough was enough and I was going to finish my wine rack. I needed to get the wine out of my cabinets and my hubby needed the wine rack out of the shed. Now that it is finished, I've determined I have too much wine and need a bigger rack. Or I could just drink it. :)

If you remember, the wine rack was in pretty sad shape. Lots of dust, mildew, and some missing screws. Since it was only $10, I figured I could do something with it. After a good cleaning, repairing and sanding, I finally decided on a color: Valspar's Lake Country #5003-5C.

I'm really loving all the aqua and turquoise that I'm seeing out in blogland these days. It's quite a stretch from my typical decorating style. A style that I'm slowly but surely changing. I grabbed a million paint chips and spent a good hour pouring over them in the Lowes paint department...like I do everytime I decide to paint something. I picked Lake Country on a whim and I love it!

I painted one coat of Kilz primer and 2 coats of Lake Country on. I hit the edges and a few other places with the palm sander to distress it. After the paint had dried, I rubbed on a Valspar Antiquing Glaze all over. I think it toned down the paint color and gave it a nice rustic finish.

I didn't take any pictures of the painting and staining of the wine rack. I figure that is pretty self-explanatory.

The top that Mr. DIY cut for me is stained with a couple coats of Minwax Special Walnut. I decided that it wasn't really dark enough for me so after the Special Walnut dried, I went back over it with a couple coats of Minwax Dark Walnut.

So without further ado, here is my new wine rack.

And just a reminder of what it looked like before:

The Antique Wardrobe

The antique wardrobe is finished...for now. Mr. DIY is still digging in his heels about painting the exterior of the wardrobe. After a good cleaning with bleach and Lysol, I got started.

Mr. DIY is 6'2". The wardrobe is over 7 feet tall.

The interior was a rough, unfinished wood. I used an old "junk" brush to prime. Due to the previous inhabitants of said wardrobe, I wanted to make sure every inch was covered.

I thought I chose a nice, fresh olive green color for the interior. Instead it looked like neon yellow. I tried to live with it for a few days. It wasn't happening. Back to Lowes I went.

The new color I chose is called Weathered Glass (EB8-3) by Eddie Bauer Home at Lowes. It is nice and bright and gives me a feeling of clean when I open the doors. The pictures are not great because I took them with my old point and shoot...and they were taken indoors. The dark spot you see on some of the pictures is something on the lens inside the camera. I'll use my Rebel XT from now on.

When I finished painting, Mr. DIY built new shelves for both sides of the wardrobe. They are got a fresh coat of Weathered Glass.

For now, it is still sitting in our dining room. It is too big to maneuver it into our bedroom. Slowly but surely, I'll get it moved into our home office. I will use it to store cherished, hand-quilted quilts, embroidered doilies, runners, and pillow cases made by Mr. DIY's grandmother. It also holds grandma's wedding gown and my wedding gown.

Many Furniture Refinishing Projects

Mr. DIY's 85-year-old grandmother passed away last week. She lived out on the family farm. We now have the task of cleaning out her house. Like many people from her generation, she was a "pack rat" or hoarder if you will. She saved everything from fast food containers to used tin foil. As we dig through the house, the treasures we are finding are phenomenal!

She was a quilter. She kept a notebook with a record of every quilt she ever made and who she made it for or sold it to. We are talking hundreds and hundreds of quilts...they were hand quilted, not machine quilted. Three Lane cedar chests full of finished quilts, quilt tops, blocks, embroidered pillow cases and doilies were divided between my husband and his sister. We each also chose a cedar chest to keep our treasures in.

The remaining items in the house will go to my husband and I. There are many antique dressers, tables, wooden chairs, a china cabinet, dry sink, and my absolute favorite...an antique wardrobe. I fell in love with it the minute I laid eyes on it. It even still has the key to lock it!

The only down side to these wonderful treasures...mouse droppings. Living on a farm and being an elderly, stubborn German lady (I say this with love, she was ornery!), she refused help with her house and the mice have taken over. My first instinct is to bleach everything, but I don't want to ruin any of the pieces.

I'm looking to my fellow DIY furniture refinishers for advice on how to clean these pieces so they are able to be used again and without hurting them.

I still need to take pictures of the pieces, but many of them are still in the house and will be moved to a storage trailer temporarily until I can work my way through them.

Craigslist Wine Rack

What can I say? We've had a busy summer and I'm just a lousy blogger.

I'm in the middle of refinishing a wooden wine rack that I purchased off Craigslist.

It was very wobbly and required new screws to reinforce it.

Mr. DIY also made a top for it. If you noticed in the first picture, the wine racks are stack-able. Mr. DIY had to drill holes in the top to fit down over the pegs. In order to get the correct depth, we used electrical tape wrapped around the drill bit. When the tape "tail" begins to "dust" the drill shavings from your board and touches the board, you know you have drilled deep enough. It's a neat little trick.

I have it all sanded down and ready to paint; however, I haven't chosen a color yet so it waits.