Little table with a new look

WE ALL SAW THIS COMING EMILY
As promised, I took more flattering pictures of my little white table.

You'll notice that the table doesn't look the same as it did on Monday. Ah, well...that's because the sandpaper fairy came by for a visit. There were a couple areas on the table I wanted to smooth down and after a little sanding, I realized that the whole piece would look better distressed. Not only to show-off the details, but also to make up for some of it's faults. Two corners on the curves of the table had previously broken off and glued back together. It was like this when I got it and unfortunately when the pieces broke off, the wood chipped on one side. From certain angles, you could see a small gap where the wood was missing. I tried to paint the inside of the gap white to make it look more seamless, but it wasn't enough. The brown wood was still clearly showing. So instead, I distressed the piece lightly so that the eye doesn't focus on the gap or the glued area. And no, I'm not going to glaze the piece this time. Instead I'm just going to rub some clear Briwax over it. I'll probably get to that tomorrow.

So here's the table with a little face-lift. More like a teeny tiny painless injection.

I DON'T EVEN HAVE TO ASK WHAT'S IN THIS PICTURE BECAUSE I KNOW YOU'RE GOING TO TELL ME ANYWAY.
In case some of the items don't look familiar you might remember Le Baron, the French chair I re-upholstered a few weeks ago with canvas drop cloth. The creamer, ironstone plate, and bronze lamp were thrift store finds I posted about before. And see what I meant about that lamp? It doesn't need to be painted white. The bronze looks great as is! A Garden of Girls was the book of poems I purchased at an estate sale and that castle...well that's one of my all-time favorite purchases. My husband and I bought it a couple years ago at the Artisan's Craft Fair held at the Codman Estate in Concord, MA. The woman who made these takes the roots or knotty parts at the bottom of trees, cleans them up, and makes circular cuts in them. When you pull up the layered cuts, a castle appears! To me it looks like a oceanside castle on a rocky hill. Lovely isn't it? When you collapse the layers, it looks like a beautiful gnarled piece of wood. I'll show you more pictures of the castle tomorrow.

And just for fun, I decided to take a couple pictures of what it would look like if my husband added a little something to decorate the table.

Yup. Nothing beats reading poems with some nice Irish Whisky.

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Tuesday Thrift Find: Creamer and a Curtained Shelf

WHAT'S THAT THING IN THE BACKGROUND? IS SHE GOING TO USE IT FOR PUPPET SHOWS?
Today while Aine and I were visiting my mom, we stopped at a couple thrift stores and I went home with these two things!

The little white pitcher is a Pfaltzgraff creamer in their Heritage pattern. I'd love if it was an antique, but I'm fine that it's not because I got it for 50 cents! And guess how much I spent on the other thing? The best way to describe it is a wood-curtained shelf. So what do you think? Ready? 50 cents! These aren't things I had to have, but how can you walk away from a price like that? I bought them both from the same place and we were lucky that the thrift store was having a 50% off sale on housewares that day. I mean $1 for each is a great deal, but $1 for both is unheard of!

Now, what to do with the shelf? The fabric is off-white with a small blue flower pattern and it looks brand new. No need to replace it! So should I put magazines in it? Use it as a bathroom caddy to store lotions and soaps? Put little potted plants in it? Wait until Aine gets a little older so she can use it as a doll crib? Or maybe we could hang it upside down as a curtain valence for her future play kitchen? And of course, yes, I could use it for puppet shows. So many possibilities for just 2 quarters. I think everyone can agree that these are the thrifty deals that we live for!

Sewing Drawer Teacup Cupholder

I BET YOU WERE THE LAST ONE WITH A SLAP BRACELET WHEN THEY WERE POPULAR.
A lot of people have been into sewing machine drawers for awhile now and I know I'm a little late to the party, but better late than never right? I bought one drawer with the hope that I'll be able to find a matching one and a rack to put them in sometime in the future. This particular drawer was not a beauty when I first came upon it. It was slowly dying of suffocation from the ugliest shade of brown paint I've ever seen. I have a feeling the previous owner had never heard of wood stain and thought that they could brighten the wood of the sewing table by painting the whole thing a wood-color. I hope they were happy with the results because if I saw the whole antique table in this shade of brown, I'd puke a little.

Thus began my first stripping adventure using Motsenbocker's Liftoff which I saw recommended on Miss Mustard Seed's blog. It's a water-based stripper in gel form and can be purchased at Lowe's. I applied it thickly with a cheap paintbrush on the sides of the drawer right over the hideous brown paint. 15 minutes later I scraped it off with a paint scraper followed by a few hard wipes with a rag.

It took about 2-3 applications to finally get it all off. Quick suggestion, don't wait more than 15 minutes or the paint-gel combo gets sticky and starts to dry out. If you wait the recommended amount of time, it's sticky but in a wetter form and easier to take off. After the final application was scraped and wiped off, I waited for the wood to dry before taking 60-grit sandpaper and hand-sanding it down.

LOOKS PRETTY NICE. WHY DON'T WE JUST STOP THERE.
I actually liked how the naked wood looked, but figured the drawer would look a little classier with some wax. I had some dark brown Briwax on hand and used a clean cloth to rub it on the drawer. I used another cloth to lightly wipe it down afterwards to get rid of any excess. This is only the second time I've ever used it, but I really love how the wood looks afterwards. All polished up with that luster-look that everyone's always talking about and I didn't have to deal with a wood-stain!

It's pretty hot here in Houston so the wax melted a little. If this happens to yours, put it in the fridge for about 15 min and it should harden right up!

Right now I'm using the drawer to hold our tiny Chinese teacups. The cups and teapot aren't antique, but I think when they're this cute you can look past that! Here they are all lined up in a row...

But mid-way through this post I had a revelation and went back to take pictures of them stacked on top of each other. They don't stack well because of those little handles and I could probably use 4 more to make better use of the drawer, but look at this:

I don't ever say adorable, but this might be what it would look like if I acted the word out with props.

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Little table love

BACK TO THE WHITE AGAIN EH?
Hope everyone had a great weekend! We went to the Bayou Bend Arts and Crafts festival on Saturday and had such a great time looking at paintings, photos, mixed media art, pottery, and garden sculptures. I didn't buy any because they weren't in my price range, but I really loved the dark whimsical paintings. I don't remember the artist's name, but he had great paintings of evil bunnies wearing top hats or menacing frogs riding bicycles. Of course this inspired me to do a little painting of my own, but painting furniture just isn't quite the same as painting a picture is it? Some day I'll show everyone the little cartoon paintings that I've done, but until then let's talk furniture!

My little table is finally finished and it looks a bajillion times better. I talked about it earlier here. As you can see, before it was dark, dated, and uninspiring.

After sanding it quickly all over with 60-grit sandpaper, I painted 3 coats of Behr Interior Semi-gloss Creamy White paint. This is what it looked like for the last 2 weeks, half-painted and hoping to get my attention. I just was too busy to give it the love it deserved.

And finally tonight I spent some quality time with it and it's bright, happy, and ready to support some of my best thrift and estate finds. By the way, sorry for the ugly background! I had to take it in front of the garage door because I was running out of space. Pictures of a more complete look to come in a couple days.

Hope everyone had a great weekend! I have a few projects hanging over my head right now and I'm hoping to get at least 3 done this week. Maybe I should give up desserts until they're all done, but then my husband would have to deal with a cranky angry Emily. Poor guy, I guess for him I won't do that to myself. But I'm only doing it for him!

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Spooning at the Estate Sale

PLEASE TELL ME THIS POST IS ABOUT A SPOON AND NOT SOMETHING ELSE WE DON'T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT.
Here's a little find that deserves a whole post. It's a silver-plated sugar spoon I bought at an estate sale. The mark on it is WM Rogers and Son and it's the perfect thing to use when drinking tea in my new/old ironstone teacup and saucer.

I'm strictly a tea drinker. I've always wanted to like coffee but finally admitted that it just wasn't my cup of tea. HAH! Hilarious aren't I? I'm a little odd though, and not just because of that terrible joke, but because I prefer black tea. My favorites are Irish or English breakfast, but I drink it like the Chinese girl that I am. No milk or sugar. Guess I'm going to have to change that with my new spoon! Or I could always reserve it for guests when I have tea parties. Nothing's better than high tea! Well maybe having your husband make all the tea sandwiches and scones is a close second.