Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Before and After!

This is my little LADY MARMALADE! I am so glad I have something to post that is a little different then my usual! I rarely take the BEFORE photos and I am getting BETTER at remembering to! She used to be a shabby old hobo who nobody LOVED- but with a little TLC and serious elbow grease- HOW beautiful has she turned out!!!! The green paint is a muted OLIVE tone and I couldn't RESIST a little SASSINESS by coloring her guts HOT RED!

The Hat box is full of what?   Kids Books.... just like every NOOK and CRANNY!!!!!!

This is a FAVORITE that evolved out of HATE>> The story begins with excitement over an antique Church Pew that was run down and covered in a half inch of yellowed LACQUER... Excitement that turned to LOATHING as I spent more then 20 hours sanding and resanding and resanding the bench (BROKE a Sander!) and then countless more hours as I painted 3 coats of red and sealed it...
At the end of all that work- I had two offers to buy it and as I stared angrily and MY beautiful bench.... I knew I was NEVER willing to do that much work on a bench I MAY find in the future. I refused both sales and NOW LOVE the bench because it's the ONLY SANE way I can cope.

This door is PERFECT just as it is. I considered putting some OLD GLASS knobs on here to be used for hanging bags or hats on, but realized how beautiful the Door is on it's own and displays with charm and such a sense of HISTORY. To wonder WHO was using this as a passage- what room on the house did it close to?  LOVE it.
Solid Cedar Chest that went from a TAN Fabric padded top with MAUVE flowers and HONEY colored stain to this. What can I say... I love me the RED and WHITE combo... and I have soo many photos of these same colored pieces... because it's what I have kept and I wasn't wise enough before to photograph all my works before they left through the DOOR!!!!


This is a SOLID oak mirror that's ROSE colored glass. BEAUTIFUL. It would be impossible to guess it's age... but from the unfinished back, I can see it is ANTIQUE... When I started on it... it took DAYS of sanding to peel off the layers of LACQUER....







So this little baby is MY solution to Childrens BOOKS- which I have coming out of my ears at this point. I am GLAD my kids have so many options to read, but I don't like having them out and displayed.  I have two of these little benches and what I love about them besides storage and seating is... VERSATILITY> My other one I use for Toys! (I've had Clients use these as LAUNDRY bins too!)