My new crush!

A couple of years ago I heard about this allegedly awesome new paint out on the market. It was from England, the creation of some woman who decided she could do better than the latex options that were out there. It was taking the decorative painting world by storm. If you were going for "shabby chic", it was The Paint.

So, when a local boutique started carrying Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint last year it was a pretty big deal. There was only one other shop in the state that was stocking it. The whole state! Of course, I had to buy a can. One can of paint in the color Provence, and a can of clear wax. Done.

Then a year went by.

I bought furniture to paint, but I didn't seem to find time space motivation to actually put paint on any of it. Weird, huh? I'm not going to delve into the mental blocks that may have been in place that were keeping me from being as creative in 2012 as I should have been. You don't care anyway, right? You just want to see the pictures! So let's get to it!!

I found this sweet little table at an auction last fall, and paid a little more than I probably should have, but I knew it would be adorable with some chalk paint on it. Sometime last fall I also bought two more cans of paint, and a can of dark wax. So I was ready to go. (Pretend the top is still unpainted... I got excited and forgot to take a good "before" photo.)

  

I put a coat of Versailles on the whole thing and let it dry, then I watched a couple of videos on how to use the paint... because that's the way I roll. ;) After watching the videos, I decided to go back over it with a little more paint and add a little texture for the wax to dig into. 

 

Once the clear wax had cured a little (It only took ten minutes or so.) I added a coat of dark wax, very lightly, and started rubbing it in as well, to antique it. Here's the top with half of it antiqued...

 

Then when the dark wax was done, I sanded a bit along some of the edges. It's such a precious little piece, I didn't want to rough it up too much. It's classy, not a street tramp I picked up off a curb. Once the sanding was done, I just went over those spots again with a little clear wax, and voila! I literally squealed. I was so pleased with the result and kind of amazed at how easy it was. 

What do you think? 

I'm kind of in love. :) And now, nothing in my house is safe... painting will be happening!!

A cleaning proverb, a sweet chair and a table with potential.

I'm kind of amazed at myself today. I spent a solid 8 hours cleaning and organizing the garage and carport, and my poor old 45 year old body is now letting me know that it may have been a bad idea. I disagree. I might be a little really sore tomorrow, but by god, I have SPACE in my garage again!

I know everyone has messy garages, but ours had gotten pretty ridiculous. It's not just the boxes and boxes of things that I brought home from my mother's house over the last year. (sisters' sorting parties are in the works!) Those are definitely taking up a lot of space, but the other issue that is more frustrating is the lack of interest that my family seems to have in putting things where they belong. I clean off a shelf, or organize a drawer, or provide a basket - but stuff still gets left between where it was used and where it should be.

I know you are nodding your heads. :)

So I heartlessly threw stuff in the trash all day, I put stuff in the attic, I put like things together and organized them, I listed a ton of stuff on Craigslist.com... and at the end of the day I have some space in the garage again. Awesome. I feel lighter.

And as a bonus, I pulled out this sweet chair that I brought home from my mom's a couple of weeks ago and cleaned her up. It was in the workshop that mom and I had been using as our "this has potential!!" storage area, and I just couldn't leave it behind.

It's missing a couple of cross-braces between the legs, and obviously a seat. It was filthy to start with, but as you can see it cleaned up pretty well. The plan is to staple some nylon window screen into the seat so that it can be planted with some annuals and put on someone's porch. Adorable!

 

 

How cool is it that you can see where the rungs in the front are worn from someone's little feet resting there? I love stuff like that. 

I also pulled this table out and gave it a second look. It is too colonial for my taste, but it was a freebie on the curb I picked up a while back. The top was hinged so that you could store stuff in it, but where it hinged didn't allow for it to open enough  for it to be really useful. It would be hard to find stuff back in there, you know? I thought about just putting it on MY curb... then I thought again. I grabbed my rubber mallet and started giving it some whacks, and eventually it was topless.

Definitely better... of course that's when I saw that the top wasn't just glued in, but actually had screws in it. I was too impatient to discover this pre-whacking...No damage done, however. I'm thinking it would be a great display table with a small window or even just a piece of glass placed over the top. Ideas? What do you think??