French Provincial Vanity Embossed with Lace

French provincial is one of my favorite styles of furniture to paint. It has very feminine lines and goes well, mixed with other furniture. Sometimes just a simple Provincial side table painted in french hues placed next to a bed gives that special touch to a room. 
I've been lucky to find French provincial lingerie chest, desk, vanities, chairs, and chests of drawers. Most of the time they don't last very long and sell particularly well in my area.  
This week I visited a new antique store in Beaumont and to my surprise found a French provincial desk with the chair to match! Both desperately need a make over and as soon as I get caught up with my other painting they will get a new look.
I am posting the make over of a vanity today that I painted with peacock by Paint Couture, lace embossing, stenciling, and glazing to change it up a bit!
Here is a picture of the vanity BEFORE - 

Embossing medium by Paint Couture the Collection was used on the top of this vanity along with a large lace table cloth. I used two glazes by the Couture Collection - Copperhead and Champagne. Using several different glazes gives a nice depth to the lace. 
Embossing is a great application for hiding flaws on your furniture. But it's also a great way to add texture to a piece.
A good trowel is important for accuracy and smoothness. My favorite trowel is this one: 

Here is the Embossing Medium by Paint Couture:
It reminds me of cake icing!

These two sample boards were my inspiration for the color of the vanity. 

And the process of the vanity began here .......

 Painted with peacock and drying.......

 Embossing medium applied with lace .......

And the completed vanity in our store. It sold to a sweet customer!

If you would like to learn how to emboss I will be teaching this application in an upcoming workshop. Go here to keep up with our workshop schedules. Remember we offer a workshop that we call "U Schedule It". You decide when and which workshop you are interested in taking and you stop by Fresh or call and schedule it!

Hutch Top Re-Purposed

If you have a china cabinet with a hutch top and you're tired of the look and want to try something a little different this post may help. I searched Pinterest for ideas and there are several good ones. I sold the base to this top pictured above, so I removed the glass doors and those sold fairly quickly too. These tops are too low and unstable to use as they are. I went to my stash in the garage and I found four cute curved french legs that I knew would be perfect for the look I wanted. I showed my husband what I wanted to do and he helped me get the right board to attach to the base. 
We attached a board that was about 8 inches wide to the base to make an extra shelf. To that board we attached the french legs. 
I painted the new shelving unit with Linnea by Colors of Sweden. Linnea is a beautiful blueish gray color that blends well with any decor. I applied a Paint Couture lacquer for protection and I may put a glaze on it later but the picture is without glaze. 

Here is the finished make over:

If you've passed up those hutch/china cabinets because you didn't want the top, this could be a solution. As I said earlier Pinterest has a few other ideas to get inspiration, so be sure and check them out! 
Have you re-purposed anything lately? If so, please share it on this post. I love seeing your projects that you are creating and painting.
The weather was beautiful today and perfect for painting. I will be posting some of the other things I'm working on in a few days. 
Fresh will be open Friday from 9-5 for all your painting needs. Stop by and let us help you get started on your DIY project. Check us out on Facebook for all the latest FRESH news. Workshops are posted for February on our FB page. You can register online here or come by the store. 

Stripping Furniture the Easy Way Part 2

Part 2 of yesterday's post on the reformation of a buffet. I ended that post at where I had stripped and sanded the top. Now it is ready for the dark stain glaze. I used to apply stain but I've learned to love the use of our glazes to get the look of stain. It is SO much prettier and easier and you can get the perfect shade with glaze. All three lines of our paints have glaze in their collection. For this I used Mother Earth's Antiquing Glaze on this particular top. It's a rich dark brown and the more coats you apply the deeper and darker it will be. I applied two coats of glaze and then one coat of Couture Lacquer. Why the Lacquer? It's a buffet and I feel it needs extra protection. There are a couple of tools we sell at Fresh that make applying glaze and lacquer so easy. Send me a message about those if you are interested. I don't use anything else since I was introduced to these tools.
The base is painted in Colors of Sweden, Misty Fjord with Sheer Smoke Glaze. The hardware was a little out dated so I bought new hardware to give it more of a farmhouse look. 
The Colors of Sweden are part of The Couture Collection and these are gorgeous hues of soft french pastels. Here is the COS pallet of colors.

Remember all of our paint products are low or no VOC's and are environmentally safe. This buffet was one of my favorite make-overs for 2015. I'm happy to say it sold very quickly. Here is a picture of the buffet in it's final transformation. 

The hutch top was disassembled and re-purposed into another piece of furniture. I took the glass doors off and sold those. You will be surprised what I did with the top. But that will be on another post, so come back later when I post those before and after pictures. 

Here's a sneak peek of the before picture of the hutch top:

 Please leave a comment and let me know what you are working on this week. If you have any questions on painting please post those too. 

Stripping Furniture the Easy Way

I don't always strip furniture before I paint it but sometimes there is a piece that needs to be stripped and sanded to make it special. This was the piece that needed that extra TLC. Usually I only see the need for the top to be stripped, as was in the case of this buffet. I love the look of a painted base with a stained top. A friend called me and said he had a nice buffet that he thought I would like and he was right I loved it! I love it when I get those kind of calls and they work out. It was in decent condition and the price was good. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with this project. Buffets are really popular for consoles for the large screen TVs. They are excellent for loads of storage and they look beautiful when painted. This particular one had a hutch on the top that had glass doors. I removed the top and began working on the base immediately. I'll share with you later what I did with the hutch top. This post I will focus on the reformation of the bottom portion. So here is the make over of this beautiful buffet. The top had several deep scratches that needed to be sanded. I wanted to stain the top a dark stain so I decided to use my favorite stripper to remove the finish. When you remove the finish you need to use low odor mineral spirits to remove the slush and smooth out the finish. When this dries you are ready to sand. I use an orbital sander for a nice silky finish. Here is a picture of the top before and after I stripped it.

As you can see it had been abused in it's prior life but it was so pretty when I stripped it and sanded out the marks.
My favorite stripper to use is Strypeeze. Be sure to wear gloves, protective eye wear, and a mask when using this product. 

I also use mineral spirits to wipe the top clean and prepare for sanding.

When you apply the Strypeeze it is a gel solution that needs to be spread all over the surface with a brush or rag. I use a chip brush and a soft rag to apply it. I also use a small nylon brush to get in the crevices. If you have an old toothbrush those make good tools also! The Strypeeze worked wonderfully!! The finish came off quickly and easily - "happy dance"! Here is a pic of it coming off - YAY!!

A flat trowel is a great tool to use to scrape and scoop off the sludge. This part is really messy but so exhilarating! All that yucky old top coat just melting away and seeing the beautiful unfinished wood underneath gives you a feeling of excitement. Why? Because the transformation begins here.....
Okay, I think this is enough on this post about this buffet, but I will be back in a few days to show the end results! 
What are you painting these days??? Share with us on our facebook page or email me if you have any questions about painting. The online store is ready to ship you any products you may need. Just go here to have it shipped to your door. If you are close to our home store we are fully stocked and would love to help you get started. Have a great week and I'll be back to finish this post and show the finished piece. 

 

2016 and Fresh is Celebrating 3 Years

I know it's been many months since I have posted on my blog and I apologize! I'll try to be more consistent in keeping you up to date with our store, family, DIY projects, events, and news. I'm looking forward to the year 2016. Looking back on 2015, I have many good memories and then a few, not so good memories. I guess we can all agree that it's just life and it has it's ups and downs, highs and lows, mountain tops and valleys, but through it all God is in control and he is always there to pick up the pieces. And for that, I am very thankful....where would I be without him?
I have several things to share with you that will be happening at Fresh this upcoming year. The month of February we will be celebrating our 3rd year of being in business. Can you believe it's been 3 years???? Sharon and I cannot believe it - but time flies when you're having fun. Our workshop schedule can be found on our facebook page here. If you want to join us in our fun filled workshops please register early. We can teach you how to paint your furniture, cabinets, crafts, or whatever is needing a fresh new look. 
Fresh will be attending the Christus LiveWell Conference in Jasper this year on February 5th at the Harvest Church. We invite you to shop our booth for the newest DIY paints and tools for your projects. Sharon and I will be demonstrating many of our products and available for any questions you might have. 
American Paint Company is our newest DIY chalk and clay paint line that we introduced to our store this week. We were sad to say "good-bye" to Mother Earth Paints due to them not producing paint any longer. We still have plenty of ME in stock at several of our locations. 
After researching the chalk based paints once again we fell in love with APC. It's all natural, no VOC's and the leader in Chalk and Clay paints. What better fit for Fresh? 
More exciting news will be shared in my next blog post but for now I think that is enough for one post. 
If you are working on a project or hesitant to get started, please stop by Fresh and let us consult you on easy applications. The paint world has definitely changed tremendously over the past couple of years. If you are still stripping paint, sanding, etc. you may be surprised to know that you don't have to do all of that anymore with our products at Fresh. You will be amazed at how easy and fun painting is now. You can basically paint a typical furniture piece in a couple of days. No longer do you have to use a sander to distress, no more stinky harmful fumes, paint inside instead of in the cold and heat, drying time is minimal, paint the hardware to update, and clean up is with soap and water. There are no limits to what you can learn in our workshops. The picture I'm posting is one of the many applications we teach! Have a wonderful weekend and as always share your DIY projects with us......PLEASE.