Revamped Hutch!

I just finished a big project for designer Karen Dunlap of KMD Designs (karen@kmdinteriors.com) and wanted to share it with you.

Here is the before photo that Karen first sent to me.  A lovely hutch made by Ethan Allen, the scroll work and the finish were not going to work with their new design plan but fortunately Karen is great at re-imagining furniture with a new paint job and hardware (her customer's love it too because they save so much money!)  I love the opportunity to make her vision happen!

The first thing that had to go was the scroll work at the top.  My friend Mike, who is a handyman, offered to change it out to a plain board.  I wish I had watched him do it to see what the process was, but he said it was pretty straightforward and had the piece back to me within a few hours.

Here is the before and after of the scroll work:

Before

After

It made a big difference!  Great job Mike!

The beaded board back panel of the hutch, the crown molding and the top of the base were all to remain natural wood, just the white parts were to be painted.  Karen asked me to paint it with Benjamin Moore's CSP 85 - Tweed Coat (a soft gray) and then distress it.  Unfortunately, the CSP series of paint is not meant for furniture, but it was simple enough to have the folks at Benjamin Moore color match it in their Advance paint.  I chose Benjamin Moore's #1484 - Ashwood Moss as an undercoat, which is a darker gray that would show through the distressing.

Next step, taping off and priming and painting the base coat of Ashwood Moss.

I used newspaper to completely protect the back board from oopsies and then taped very carefully.  Even doing that though I had to touch up after painting. 

Doors with the first of two coats of the Ashwood Moss.  Getting the paint down into the groove in the middle of the door panels was a definite challenge!

The top coat went on very easily.  I hand brushed the entire project to keep true to the "old, distressed" look.  To me, seeing brush strokes just adds to the aged look.  After the top coat dried, it was time to distress the piece.  The best way for me to do that is to think about where someone would be touching the piece and sand that area - around the doors, under the knobs and even sometimes in the middle of the piece.  You aren't looking for symmetry as much as you are looking for balance in your placement of the distressed areas.  I step back a lot and take a look at the piece as a whole to make sure the balance is there.

Before - Close up of the drawers.  When the knots of the wood are showing through, I always put a few extra swipes of primer over them.  Knots tend to "bleed" through if they aren't sealed completely.

After - The top coat is sanded to show the darker gray underneath and even a bit of the primer.

Isn't the hardware GORGEOUS!! 

After - the customer loves it!  As a final touch, I oiled all of the natural wood and it just sparkled!

I am still taking the photography class so hopefully my shots will be improving soon.  I was rushing today to get the hardware on and touch ups done before the movers arrived to pick it up!  They actually arrived while I was taking these photos, but hopefully you can see how pretty it looks.

Thank you all for your patience as I sporadically post these days.  I have several things going on that I will share as I can - all good things! :)  Have a great week!  I leave you with a few more of my favorite photos from my photography class this week!

My cherry blossoms from the tree in my front yard.

This is a small farm near my home.  The lady who lived here collected Irises from all over the world I guess.  She recently passed away and now they are deciding what to do with the property - I hope they make a park out of it!

Self portrait from my dock at the lake.

Photography Class - The First Step...

I mentioned last week that I've started a photography class.  I hadn't received my camera by the first class last Wednesday, for which I'm grateful because after the class I cancelled my order and purchased a Canon T3i.  My amazing nephew, Charlie, helped me decide what to get - my criteria was to have a "speedy button" for action shots and to take great shots of my crafts and projects.  I think I've chosen wisely, although I really have no idea yet what I'm doing.  There are several other ladies in class with the same camera, so we will work it all out in good company!

For the first week, we were asked to do several assignments.  The first was to take photos of a fence with the F-stop on different settings to see the difference in focus (I'll save those for the end of this post since they're not very exciting because they are, well, a fence. :))

She then gave us our "Challenge" for the week, which was to ask a question through the lens.  Really?  A question through the lens?  I have been so immersed in learning the camera that I didn't have the time to really ponder such a deep question, and so I decided to kick it old school and ask the age old question...

Yes, that is a real chicken silhouetted in the background.  I grabbed the egg from home and went over to the local kids working farm in our town.

Our next task was to take photos of the things that compelled us to take the class in the first place.  That would be my crafts, but since I was at the farm, I decided to just keep taking shots of the animals.  They were adorable!

I loved this guy!  There was already a very large rooster in the hen house and this poor guy just ran back and forth trying to get to the girls on the other side of the fence!  If I got close, he would chase me away.   He was so funny and I felt a little sorry for him!

Hey Ladieeeeeees!  How YOU doin'??

Yes, the Momma gave one of her many little babies a kiss!

This little guy kept getting stuck in the flap going outside.  He never gave up though!

These were the slightly older babies, still sleeping! - Teenagers!!  Sheesh!!

Momma number two - all of her babies are sporting what appears to be little white socks!

So tweet!!

This was just an old tree on the property.  I hope as I learn how to do this, I will be able to bring the colors and textures out better.  This was beautiful.

And now for the fence and some paint chips from Benjamin Moore to practice with the F-stop...feel free to skip to the end!

Class number two is tomorrow morning!  I'm excited to see how to improve on what I did this week and hopefully to learn something new for next week!  I'm a little sporadic with my posts lately and I'm sorry about that.  I'm still trying to keep up with a lot of new projects coming in and I'm so excited to share them with you in the weeks to come!  Have a happy SPRING!!

Hallelujah!

Earlier this week I posted a small piece of a stained glass window that used to hang in our church.  The church was renovated a few years ago and they just didn't want to throw away so much beautiful glass and so it has sat outside in the back of the church for 8 years!

Dirty and muddy but oh so lovely!  My good friend Carol sent me a text with an announcement in the church bulletin that they were looking for crafter's to try and do something with the windows and Carol very sweetly thought of me.   The funny thing is that I had just been thinking that I'd like to get more involved with the church and here an opportunity just drops in my lap!  (Of course, since then I've been thinking I need a million dollars and am hoping that will just drop in my lap as well... :)).

I belong to an online craft group and while I had been thinking of using resin to make either crosses or jewelry with the stained glass, I wanted to put it out the the creative cosmos on the craft site and see what ideas they came up with.  What an amazing group, jewelry, signs, garden stones are just a few of the great ideas they came up with.  A nice thing about having so much of it is that I can probably try all of their ideas!

First, I wanted to try resin.  I took a hammer to the window and broke it apart.  I put it in a paper bag first to protect myself from glass flying around.  Then I ripped open the bag and put it in a box so it wouldn't slide around.

Next, I separated the pieces and then started laying them out to see how I liked them together.

I purchased a circle bezel and the resin kit at Michael's (using a coupon of course).  A circle bezel is simply a jewelry base that you can decorate using resin or other materials.  Think of it as a flat bottomed frame that you can fill with whatever you like.  The resin is a liquid that you pour in while wet and it hardens to a rock hard finish that is completely clear.  Below is an image of bezels that I pulled from an Etsy shop called Ilovepaperkits. (https://www.etsy.com/listing/97690852/10-1-inch-square-pendant-bezel-settings?utm_source=google&utm_medium=product_listing_promoted&utm_campaign=supplies_low&gclid=CLPtjqO3sL0CFSqXOgodCS4AwA)

After mixing the resin and the hardener, following the directions on the box, I poured just a little bit into the bottom of the bezel to act as glue for my first layer.  I decided to line the bottom with some of the silver leaf that I bought for another project, making sure some of the leaf stood up from the bottom.  I then laid out the pieces of broken stained glass and then poured in the rest of the resin until it formed a slight dome over the top of the piece without going over the edge.

Silver Leafing the bottom of the bezel

Here is the finished piece!  I love it!  It has some air bubbles in it but for a first try, it's exactly what I was looking for!

I tried another one as well, only this time I added a small cross charm..Here are the two finished products together.  The resin makes it look like the glass is encased in a clear droplet of water and the colors really POP!

I've gone back to the craft group to ask them how to ensure no bubbles are in the final piece and received some great advice.  They are sort of like having Martha Stewart on speed dial!  My plan is to take these to the church to see if they like them and then start designing a Christmas ornament using the glass.

Have a wonderful week everyone, we are starting to warm up here in Virginia and the daffodils are starting to peek out of the ground - it's such a welcome sight after our winter here!  This week coming up I am starting my photography class - let's see if I can improve my photo quality!

Keep on Swimming...

Spring is here and I am just starting to get to the top of my work pile!  Something about the temperature being above 27 degrees just makes me feel happy and motivated to paint!

Coming soon!!

Over the past few weeks, besides my list of ornaments I'm painting, I also have had several opportunities to work for two amazing designers.  One of the projects was to silver leaf two large mirror frames.  I have always thought silver leafing would be easy, and it is, except if you want an even coat over a large object.  I'll post more on this in the next week or two but I finally had to tell the designer that I was not comfortable with my (lack of) technique at this point and didn't want to ruin the frames.  She's working on a Plan B, and I will continue to work on the silver leaf technique for next time!

Another project is a small mural above a kitchen sink.  This one is for another designer.  I have submitted my second drawing to her to show the customer and am waiting to see what she thinks.  It's  a real process to paint something for someone with definite ideas of their own (her customer) - and rather fun too.  The challenge is to ask the right questions to extract what the customer is thinking and then be able to draw it out for them.  I really enjoy this part and learn so much!  I find that many times the customer doesn't want to hurt my feelings and say they don't like my drawing, but I really have no ego about it at all even though I appreciate their concern.  Photos and more on this coming up soon as well.

Yet another project will be painting a hutch that will be delivered next week.  I have a friend who is a handyman that will change out a piece of the hutch to make it less "country" and then I will repaint it.  Can't wait to see what color she wants!

On the home front, I have changed my family room one more time!!  Bob has been travelling and, well, you know me, that means changes!  Once my new couch comes in, I'll take photos....

All exciting learning experiences for me and I love it!  Have a great weekend everyone!

I was asked to bring an entree and "something else" to my son's Indoor Track banquet this evening - here is my "something else!"   Hard boiled eggs dyed in the team colors of burgundy and gold and all of the Peeps holding little sports flags!  I used the top of a Styrofoam cooler and lined the bottom with plastic grass.  Then I attached the Peeps to the base with a toothpick so they would stand up.  Big hit!  Yes, even high school kids love Peeps!

You can see a bit more of the Styrofoam base in this shot.

College Blues..

Yard sale-ing - one of my favorite sports!  Money in pocket on a Saturday morning and out the door no later than 8:00am - modern day treasure hunting!  Last August I bought this dresser for Bobby's room.  He had been using a completely inadequate dresser that was my husbands before we got married.

This is how I had to bring the dresser home, back door wide open, praying the whole way that it wouldn't slide out!  It cost $25 and is just a decent, full sized,  Broyhill dresser.  It would do nicely, except for the color.

This is the dresser Bobby used for years - "labeled" to help him keep his clothes neat, but mostly his clothes were in piles in his closet...You may also notice the lovely curtains made from sheets -in my defense, we had just moved in and had no idea if we could actually afford our new home and so weren't spending ANY money!

Since Bobby is my Florida baby, I had tried to make his room look tropical.  I decided to "comb" a glaze over the lower half of his walls so it would look like a hut.  Here's the thing about doing paint treatments on your walls;  it changes the surface texture of your wall so if you ever want to paint over it, you will see the lines and bumps and whatever else you did in relief against the new paint.  I never loved the treatment, but we had just moved in and there were bigger fish to fry at the time.

Fast forward to last fall when Bobby left for college, I wanted to surprise him with a new room when he came home and so I spent DAYS sanding that dag-gone "hut" off of his walls.  My hands tingled for about a week after from holding the palm sander!

But I digress, back to the dresser..

I decided to paint it a dark navy blue to match his comforter and, because I already had some nice bronze curtains, I opted to accent the drawer pulls and feet in the same bronze color.

No, that wasn't a typo, I did say I wanted to accent the feet and knobs in bronze, but I love the way red looks under gold or bronze paint - you really can't see it much but it gives it a rich look.

After...

I used Rub N Buff (in the tube on the left side of this photo).  Great product and the name tells you exactly how to use it!

When we brought Bobby up to Clarkson University, I looked through the school store for a poster of the school itself - surprisingly, there was nothing.  So, as we walked around campus, I took photos of the school and of the sculptures they have on the grounds so I could frame them as a focal point over his bed.

I am pretty proud of the way they turned out.  I even added "Clarkson University" to the larger photo before I had it printed out!  Not being much of a techie, this was a huge accomplishment for me!

I painted an accent wall behind his bed in the navy blue as well and the rest of the room is in a nice soft tan.

You can just see a little of the bronze curtains in this shot and I still need to get some nice shams to plump up the bed.

Bobby was so happy with his new room when he came home over Christmas!  Of course, Joey has now asked that I not wait until he leaves home to redo his room!  I guess that is my next big project!

Have a wonderful week everyone!