A Bucket of Turquoise Gold

One of the things of the to-do list was to move Hannah into the boys' old room. It's larger and her room will son become my sewing *whoohoo* room/guest room. Anyhoo, we had to cover up Josh's scuffed gray walls before she could make her move. Hannah loves chartreuse and turquoise (like her Mama) so we went and got the paint and went to work.

We debated back and forth between several options, diagonal stripes, chevron, diamonds and her idea for huge circles. Finally I usurped my seniority and trumped her circles for chevron.

The pattern was a booger at least for this beginner but once it was measured and taped the painting went really quick.

In case you're wondering, I used a fancy square top to our Bible trivia game to lightly draw squares starting at the top left and then covered the entire wall. Then I just went corner to corner of the draw on squares to make the chevron. It was really pretty easy, a little time consuming but it would be a great project for a smaller foyer wall or any focal wall. I wold love to do a tone on tone in my foyer and maybe will, I'll letcha know.

In case you're puzzled, we continued two of the chevrons onto the little corner thinggy (boiler smoke stack) just 'cause we could. Not sure if I'm sold on it but Hannah likes it.

So we finished putting all her stuff in her room so it's not sparse like the above photo, not even close and guess what...I still had a bucket of turquoise paint. I hate to see good paint go to waste 'cause after a while it starts to separate and eventually it's useless so I found something to use it on.

I bought this little table at a thrift shop in the Sates several furloughs ago and brought it to Croatia when we shipped a container of Bibles here. It originally looked a bit better but after living on the back patio and seeing too much action it's a little worse for the wear. So...No, I didn't chunk it, I got my turquoise paint out and rescued the sad little thing.

I didn't want a new-looking table so I decided to try something different. I painted two coats of the paint on the table and then sanded the paint off  of the places that would be most touched or bumped in regular use.

You can see below what I mean. I have several close-ups to show the distressing. After that I took a can of

walnut stain from the stash in the garage and decided to age it.

I dry rubbed stain very sparingly all over the sucker! I was pretty hap-hazard about it. I did add a little extra stain where I had distressed to make it a little dirtied-up. I love Super-love the final result!

You can see in the above photo how the stain gave the turquoise paint a nice aged look and the distressing actually looks believable, I think.

I really distressed quite a bit on the corner posts, amazing how it looks like worn paint.

Oh yea and it had old, ugly brassy looking casters on it and I removed them when I painted so I could spray them black but after careful consideration (yeah right) I decided the old, ugly caster actually lent to the aged look. I love it when not doing anything makes things awesome. :0)

So I'm pretty pleased with my little serving trolley and you can be guaranteed that it won't weather the elements on the patio anymore.

Talk about a find!

Okay so you already know that I'm totally getting my kicks from going to the flea market here close to our town. I have found some real gems and I'm enjoying finding some creativity that I didn't know I had.

Anyhoo, last Saturday we headed to soul-winning as usual and usually on Saturdays my partner, Hannah and I head to the market for a quick look-see. Well this Saturday was our lucky day. As we walked my friend commented how there wasn't really anything good today and right about then she said, wait. I turned and she showed me a huge old amiore sitting on the outskirts of the market. The market was crowded so folks were sitting up on the streets. Anyhow, one look and I told her that there was no way I could afford that. It was at least 70 years old and looked to be in really good shape. We walked over anyway out of curiosity and we're surprised to see a Gypsy man and his wife with a few odds and ends and this cabinet. Anyhow after a little back and forth they came down to 200 kuna which is pretty close to $40. Now usually I don't spend more than 3 or 4 but I really wanted this. In Croatia furniture is outragously expensive and it's usually pressed wood and will fall apart as soon as it's moved. For a small cabinet to put a printer on you'll pay about $150. So when I seen this massive cabinet for such a low price I had to have it.

The man delivered it to the church and we headed out to make some visits. Funny thing; Johnny had been in town passing out tracts and made it to the church before I did. I know what his impression would be, that this thing was really expensive that I had spent everything we had in the bank, which would be unusual for me. When we finally made it back to the church all the men were in the side room looking at this cabinet. Johnny looked at me and asked how much, I smiled a sly little smile so he would think I had paid a lot and then I told him how much and he was so surprised. I was glad. My number two goal in life is to fulfil this verse in my marriage; " The heart of her husband doth safely TRUST IN HER, so that he shall have no need of spoil. Proverbs 31:11". It's so important to me that Johnny trusts me. I don't want him to ever worry when he sends me out with money or with anything he has entrusted me with.
Anyhoo, back onto topic, he was pleased.

I had to make a trip to the capital Monday with the national pastor's wife and when I came home I found out that Johnny had went to the town where the new church is and brought the cabinet home and now it's in my garage. I actually took some pictures for my refinishing records and for sharing with you. This is the closet in all it's glory just as I found it at the market. It is in great shape and has very little if any dings in it.
The mirrors are in need of replacing and the bottom drawer has swollen a bit but that's to be expected right? It's old. I does have some cute little inlaid places on it.

And inside is the real treasure. I guess because the closet is so old they more than likely didn't use hangers but instead they used pegs for hanging their things. I love that the most. Someone asked me if I was going to replace them with rods, uhhh NO!

One more key piece of information about this piece is the writing on the inside door. Aparently this girl Fora Nemčić was born February 24, 1911. She then wrote when she was married on June 24, 1932 and finally when a son Stefan, was born on the 27th of what looks to be June in 1949.

This was frosting on the cake for me. I love the closet but the information was an added bonus for me.

I think the wood is Elm but I'm not sure. If you know, please leave it in a comment. I think I'm going to just do a little sanding on this closet and maybe some use some good wax afterwards. The bottom drawer is swollen and will need some attention but that should be too hard.

Anyhoo, is my big find and I'm so excited about it.
Stay tuned for an after picture of this one!

Seeing Red!!

Okay so I've finished up another piece of used furniture. I'm loving this! It's so much fun to take an ugly piece of furniture and make it usable. I needed a buffet like this for a while but there was no way I was going to pay so much for something that wasn't actually a need but more of a want.

Anyhoo here's my after shot of this buffet. I got it at an open market and now I love it!I has also taken up residence in Johnny's office and is a catch all for my sewing stuff. It's amazing what a little patience, sand paper and paint will do. Oh yea and that's my Hannah posing with the buffet, she makes it look so nice!

Varnished from the face of the Earth

Yes I know that said varnished and not vanished. I've been gone from my blog for a while but totally busy. I have a new love in my life. I told you about some old furniture I acquired, well I've been staying really busy with refinishing those pieces.

The first piece is a desk I came upon in the Gypsy village. One of the families we pick up had this desk sitting on the side of their house and I asked if they were throwing it out or what. Long story short, Wednesday it came to live with us. It was a real mess, lots of scratches and misuse, all the more fun!
Anyhow I sanded all the old varnish off the top and the drawers and cleaned the piece up a bit. The sanding took several hours but was well worth the effort when I saw what was under all those years of use.
It was actually not wood but a veneer of a couple mm, but still sanded down beautifully.

I decided to only do the top and drawers since this was my first project. I didn't want to get into taking the whole thing apart and so on.

Drawers were easy to do and the after was so nice.

I am most proud of this photo. The top finished off like glass. It's lovely and such a joy to work on, which I am right now!

I actually got the desk for my sewing area, but after finishing it I realized it would be a great desk for Johnny. He was using a small computer desk with another small table for his writing the Scriptures and studying. So my sewing desk has been adopted by Johnny and he loves it. That makes me happy.

I'm working on another piece as we speak and should finish it today. I'm so excited! I got this cabinet at the flea market in the town of the new church plant. I paid very little for it and I'm planning on painting it. The veneer is really thin and I don't think I could get as good of a finish so I'm painting it. You'll have to wait to see what color!