In process

This the $23.00 bookcase/end table I found at the Plattsburgh Antique Mall a few weeks ago. It's solid wood, has a drawer (not in this pic) that pulls out from either side. It's in great shape except for the damaged veneer top.

My original plan was to paint it with the leftover BM "Wenge" Paint and Mod Podge the top with some decorative paper. However after seeing several instances where people removed the veneer and had acceptable wood underneath, I decided to try that. Now my plan is to remove the veneer on the top of the unit, sand it down well, and stain it and the drawer fronts. The rest of the unit will be painted in Wenge.

Removing the non-damaged veneer is not the most fun thing I've done in my life, but I'm holding out for the pretty. Stay tuned.

Vintage linens

Hi, I'm Dusa and I'm addicted to vintage linens. I buy them, repair them, wash them, iron them, then tuck them in a drawer waiting for the 'perfect' time. Which never seems to arrive. So I decided to do something about it.

Here, I added two similar doilies (and a crocheted medallion) to some small pillows.

I matted this one on some fabric and hung it in a thrifted frame.

(And yes, there is one under the lamp, too)

Ditto for here. But I think there are only so many linens I can hang before the CatMan complains about living in a granny house.

Any ideas how I can utilize more of my stash?

Buried

Buried in a friend's garage, under coats of paint (who paints fabric anyway??), was this little treasure. It has come to live with me, stay tuned for the makeover.

What is wenge, anyway?

It would be the Benjamin Moore version of the Hershey's purply-brown chocolate bar wrapper.

(Those white spots are glints off the polyurethane, not chips in the paint!)

A reminder of what the bench looked like before.

(wave hi to the reclusive, seldom seen Meepus!)

This is how I found it 15 years ago, tucked away in a big barn of antiques in Cambridge VT. I liked the chippy state. But recently, I wanted to change it up. The paint was a way to add depth without adding another wood tone to our space; it's neutral without being bland.

Proof

The linen cabinet is done! (The links are some 'before' pics). I stripped down the exterior and slathered on one coat of Kilz primer and two coats of Sherwin Williams' Duration semigloss, color matched to Glidden's Popcorn White (which is our apartment's trim color. It's very French vanilla-y.) The inside is Ace Hardware's Royal paint in Summerland (which is almost the same green as Frog Tape. Not that I set out to match that...) I hot glued some lace trim to the front of the shelves, and ordered knobs from Etsy, which I spray painted ivory. I wire brushed the hinges to removed all the previously caked on paint: they are kinda a nifty deco look, so I left them unpainted for now. So happy with the results!

When I moved the linens out of their storage cubbies, I also lost my 'dressing area': jewelry, perfume, eye glass landing spot. The shelf was part of the freebie pile where I picked up the Rotex chair, so out came the primer, paint, and the leftover trim from this project. Now I have a nifty area where everything is even easier to access. Woot!

Wedding gift preview

For my niece's shower:

The napkins are heavy white cotton, thrifted from somewhere a long time ago. I bleached them out, cut apart a doily that had seen better days, and used the bits as embroidery in the corners.

The tablecloth was started by my great grandmother, found in a trunk of her fabric, finished by me, and the crocheted edging was done by my great aunt.

Since I don't have kids, I'm making sure the heirlooms I have get passed on to my nieces and nephews.

Put a coat on it...

Everything is better with a coat (or two) of paint. The black coasters below were originally pewter, but that's not really where I live so I painted them. I don't have a good spray painting location, so I painted them with some "Black Licorice" craft paint into which I mixed some gold glaze. Once everything was dry, they got a lacquer coat to seal. The mum-shaped coaster was a thrift store find that I painted in my trim color "Popcorn White", then sealed. I plan on using this one as a ring dish. The little footed vase got the black/gold treatment too. 

I stripped this utensil drawer, then painted it same butterscotch yellow as the paper I used to line it, then distressed the edges with a dark green. I screwed in two tiny eye hooks and hung it in my craft room. My collection of small doo-dads is now safely out of the cats' paths of destruction.

Little projects

 

 I "Etsied" some knobs for the linen cupboard project. The ones I found were 2 parts: a knob and a back plate. The back plate is too big for the cupboard, but perfect for the white ceramic knobs I have on our closet doors. A quick spray paint session later and I have a finishing touch!

Here are few other items on the project docket. Stay tuned!

Moving along

The new linen hutch is stripped, primed, and (after this picture was taken), the first coat of the interior paint has been applied.

This weekend, my plan is to second coat the interior, 2 coats on the exterior, spray paint the vintage knobs I found, and maybe actually get stuff on the shelves. Stay tuned.

In my craft room [Happy]

Linked up to this little party -
Here's a follow up to this post.

My crafting chair: a recycled flannel pillow case, shortened and slightly tailored to fit over the back of the chair. The doily was Plattsburgh thrift mall find: isn't the donkey cute?

Here is the Ovenex cookie sheet done over as the bulletin board.

The bumper sticker says, "What happens here, stays here. But nothing ever really happens." The genie card is a birthday card from the CatMan. On the front, the genie is saying, "You have one more wish", and the dog is saying, "You may want to give this some thought" with two shiny balls of yarn in front of the cat. The inside of the card shows the cat ecstatic over the third ball of yarn. The fortune cookie fortunes say "Generosity and perfection are your everlasting goals." (yikes, they nailed that one!) and "You have a house with beautiful gardens in your future." (I believe it's an eternal one.)

On top, the photo in the black frame is a teenage CatMan, complete with um...crazy hair. The little turtle pin is the first piece of jewelry I remember getting: my grandmother gave it to me when I was 6 years old. There's also an vintage, 3-sided wooden ruler (my parents still have one in their junk drawer at home), and a little orange ninja (orange is my favorite color, and I tease the CatMan all the time about 'being a ninja').

The other items just make me smile: a little forest-y Christmas ornament, Adirondack chairs that look similar to the one in an old photo of my grandfather, a friend's herd of llamas, and a happy little boy with the caption "Jump In."

Long weekend

And the "new" linen cabinet is stripped. The wood isn't nearly as nice as it looks in this picture, so I'm sticking with my original plan of painting it. Next up is the priming!

Sprucing up the craft room

After a thrifting/junqing trip this weekend with my friend Barbara, I had some changing up to do in the craft room.

A pretty crocheted cotton runner now serves as a curtain (with this as a tie back). The green chair was starting to get a bit faded, so I took an old flannel pillow case and made a cover for the chair back. I also draped an embroidered doily over the finished cover: it's a sweet little donkey with a mouthful of flowers. I'm a bit obsessed with vintage linens - you know, like some people are about ceramic animals.

I also found this over the weekend, lurking behind a piece of furniture, filled with trash. 'Tis mine now. I'm pretty sure the CatMan is trying to ignore the tole painted items that are encroaching on the CattyAbode.

I bagged the idea of recovering my current bulletin board and instead went with converting an Ovenex cookie sheet to a magnetic board similar to this:

image courtesy of susantiques on etsy.

I used Rustoleum black glossy paint to give a nice even background and then glued little magnets to some vintage buttons (also found this weekend).

My craft room is my girly space and one where I indulge in fluff and frou-frou (well as much as I can being a neat freak/stuff purger). I like dressing her up a little.

A spring wreath.

This is my front door's new spring wreath. I used the tutorial found here. And the flowers are from here. The wreath's colors are much springier in person - it's just our hallway has crappy lighting. I'm thinking of painting the door at some point this year...citrus? chartreuse? robin's egg?

Another foundling rescued.

First he looked like this, found on the side of the road.

Now he looks like this.

The denim cushions were done by Cindy Spence (Robinson) Upholstery in South Hero, Vermont.

The dark spot behind the chair is Izzie biding her time until I'm done taking pictures so she can get back up on it.

Martha and I

Have been doing a little sewing lately.

Welcome me to the world of cell phones (yeah, I was the last one in my family to have one - and that includes my school age nieces and nephews). I needed a little case, so out came the scrap bag.

The inside lining is from a sweatshirt that was too warm and had a stain. However the phone seems to love it. The lace is a remnant found in some long abandoned corner of a flea market/antique store which I previously used for this project.

Some miscellaneous sewing included finally finishing a set of pillowcases out of  vintage calico (so springy and pretty) and 2 sets of rags torn and hemmed up from Goodwill flannel crib sheets. I also finished a set of pillowcases from a Ralph Lauren twin sheet (also a Goodwill find). I am in love with the colors and will post a pic soon.

Happy weekend - I'm off to Target and the Plattsburgh indoor flea market/antique mall. Who knows what treasures I will come home with...

Another find!

This is our new linen storage from Junk and Disorderly in South Hero. She definitely needs to be stripped and repainted. I'm thinking french vanilla outside and orange inside: a Creamsicle! Stay tuned.

A Cinderfella story

Once upon a time, there was a Viking Artline chair. His green vinyl coat was tattered and someone had splashed his body with flesh-toned paint. He thought his last days were destined to be spent on the porch of a small little junque shop and he shivered at the thought of Vermit winters.

One morning just as he had given up all hope, Queen Dusa spied him on her way into work. She contacted the proprietress of the the junque shop to pay his bail. In short order, the Viking moved to her castle, where he languished for several months in his deplorable state. Finally Queen Dusa lovingly dismantled him, removing his torn vinyl and painted sacrilege. She applied baths of Red Mahogany and Gunstock Miniwax stain to his wood, and gave him new cotton padding and a jacket of grey tweedy suiting fabric.

He has regained his rightful place in the Mid-Century court where he shall live happily ever after!

I gotta get a bigger car!

Because this side-of-the-road foundling didn't fit in the Saturn. Amazingly enough, it was located right next to the apartment of a co-worker. So I tied a note to him and left him on her porch. Another co-worker who lives near me graciously brought Rotex home to the CattyAbode. My plan is to have a local upholsterer make removable denim cushions (just waiting to hear back regarding yardage, etc.)

And the coworker on whose porch I left Rotex? Had scoped out the chair the previous day, but decided she didn't have enough room for him in the apartment. She found it funny, that when she went out the next morning, he had mysteriously made his way to her porch. I'm just amazed nobody adopted him before I did!

Chair, deconstructed

So this is what the Viking chair has looked like for the past 1 1/2 weeks. I've ripped off the vinyl (which I saved as a pattern for the new material), thrown away the old batting, and stripped the exposed wood of the nasty nude/pink flat paint. I don't even want to know what was going through the mind of the person who painted that color onto a chair covered with green vinyl. Preppy is was not.

I found some interesting things when I deconstructed the chair. The frame that is covered by upholstery is actually thick plywood and the chair back? Is...wait for it...heavy pre-formed non-corrugated cardboard. With the right tools, this chair would be a cinch to DIY.

Izzy was truly fascinated too, but I don't think it was for the same reasons!

Happy little Etsy finds

Here are some blasts from my past via Etsy. The Spaghetti String glass roly polys are the cousins to the tumblers my mom had when we were growing up. I'm going to use them as LED votive holders. And the Betty Crocker Cooky Book is just as entertaining now as it was when my mom made her world-renown Candy Cane Cookies (minus the peppermint candy). I heart Etsy!