Market and a Nightstand

Well its been another great day at the Alderney Market! I set up my furniture and some painted signs right by the water today, and what a view that was all day. It couldn't have been better weather, and there were soooo many people around since it's the Tall Ships Festival this weekend. I met alot of really nice people and there was a lot of interest in my stuff. I even sold one of my Chair Planters! You can kind of see it in the picture.

I just finished another project, this time a really interesting nightstand. I found it at Value Village for $14.99; it was quite dated, but I knew all it would take is a little paint and antiquing! Heres the before picture:

After painting it blue and white, I distressed it with 150 grit sand paper and then used dark paste wax to give it that nice aged look. The top needed something, so I stenciled a blue border using painters tape. I think it gave it just that little extra touch of interest!

I've got a great collection of furniture projects to keep me nice and busy this week. My chair planter was popular at the market so I think I'm going to try getting more of those finished. A friend from work has already placed an order! My mom also scored a really awesome dresser at Homesense for $50, it was marked down from $250 since a leg had fallen off! Also, Jen and Jackie found a really great cedar chest for my at a yard sale. I'm so excited to dive right into painting this week, I just wish I didn't have to work! haha.

Thanks for reading!

Funky Junk Bench

This week I want to try and get a couple more furniture items finished so I can bring them this weekend, so it will be a busy one for sure. Here’s my latest project which will be at the market on Saturday. It a great bench my aunts found on the curb, and me and mom went to pick up. Someone must have tried to reupholster it before, and man did they ever do a terrible job haha! They used this really dated flower fabric and instead of using a staple gun, they used a million tiny nails. Not only that, but they chose to paint the bench AFTER they upholstered it, so of course there was white paint all over the fabric. All of this added to up a very tough job getting all the old fabric off the bench.

This bench really represents the term “up-cycling”. Not only did I save this from being trashed, but the fabric I used was actually an old curtain that I found at the Salvation Army for $2.99! I loved the print and colours of the curtain, but I had a rip in it and there was only one. I knew I could use it for something so I bought it and tucked it away. The paint was also somewhat recycled. I found it on the mistint table at Kent, so it was only $5 as opposed to $20!

After painting the frame Black, I upholstered the bench seat and two front cushion panels. I ran out of fabric for the back, so I bought this great black material for the two back cushion panels. After that I finished it off by gluing on a red decorative trim to hide the staples.

Success!

The Alderney Farmers Market this weekend went so great! I brought 5 items along with me to introduce Oliver Treasures and to gain interest, and I sold one! I didn’t expect to sell anything, because lets face it, most people who go to a market don’t usually plan on spending $100+ on furniture. I ended up selling my Mexican inspired blue coffee table, which was the first piece of furniture I flipped after starting this. Besides that, I gave out a ton of business cards and talked to a lot of people who stopped to check out my booth! I got so much positive feed back from customers and other market vendors (everyone there is so nice!). Of course I forgot my camera (Ugh!), so I don’t have any pictures to share, but I’ll definitely be taking some this weekend!

Alderny Farmers Market!

It's official! This saturday I'll be at the Alderny Farmers Market! Located right downtown Dartmouth, this market is a perfect way to get people interested and aware of my little furniture business : ) I plan on having about 6-7 pieces of furniture for sale, but really I'm just trying to get my name out there, I don't imagine I'll sell much this weekend but thats ok!

I feel like I have so much to do now: I have the bench to finish, tags to make, sun catchers to put together, not to mention I have to get everything down to the market! Thank god for Mom's truck haha. I'll post pictures of the market on Sunday!

Meet Jack!

I'm back from Quebec and WOW, what a trip! It was so much fun but I'm really happy to be home and working on furniture again, plus I have so much catching up to do! My furniture is going to be featured at the Alderny Farmers Market this weekend which I'm so excited about, but I feel like I'm not ready. I found out that instead of being inside at the market, Ive been given a small barn where I can decorate it however I want and use to display all my things. I don't really expect to sell a lot this week, it's more of a way to show people what I can do. I have today off work, so I'm going to be working all day on getting ready for the market!

Here's a table i have recently finished. This is the before picture.

And here's the after!

What a mess!

On Monday me and Mom found this amazing antique sewing table at Value Village for only $30! We were both surprised it was so cheap, and it wasn't until I got home that I found out why. It had this really horrible mac-tac on the top and two sides, when I pulled it off I had a not so lovely surprise. At some point the previous owner must have tried to scrape off the top veneer and in the process, gouged out chunks of the top!

 This is what I'm dealing with right now. I've started to sand off the sticky mess, but its taking forever!

  My original plan was to stain the top and paint the bottom. I'm trying to decide if I should risk staining, on the count of the wood filler may be too obvious, or just paint the whole thing... This project is definitely going to take a lot of elbow grease and patience, I'll post pictures when I'm done!

A well travelled dresser

I'm so excited how this dresser turned out! I picked this up off the side of the road a couple weeks ago and it had no knobs and looked as if someone had previously attempted to sand it down. The top was half sanded and was a mess. Once again, I really wish i had of taken a before picture : (

The first thing I did was sand down the faces of the 3 drawers. I knew I wanted to make these look like old crates that had postage stamps and other designs on them. I found the design for the middle drawer on a great site called The Graphics Fairy. After transferring the designs on the bare wood, i went over them with a sharpie marker and sanded them a little to make them look aged. I'll add a link to my DIY projects page for complete instructions. I chose to use Minwax Polyshades in the Natural Pine (looks just like an old crate!) and finished the drawers off with some great handles.

 For the body of the dresser I used Burled Redwood from PPG and mixed it to make my own chalk paint. This turned out to be the PERFECT colour! It's nice and rich, warm, and looks like it has a history. After distressing it with 150 grit sand paper, I sealed it with Minwax Paste Wax.

I couldn't be happier how this turned out! I'm definitely going to try this look on another piece soon : )

A new addition!

I'm just about finished my latest project. This is one of my awesome finds during the curbside giveaway, which means it was free! I already had the paint, so with only spending about $10 for stain and a new brush, it's totally changed. That's definitely my favorite part about furniture flipping, the end result! You can find the Before picture of this desk Here.

After sanding down the top, I used Minwax Polyshades in Antique Walnut. This product is great because it has both the stain and polyurethane in one. Two coats of that was all it needed. Then I mixed up some homemade chalk paint in a nice yellow and green for the body, and then used the dark paste wax for antiquing.

Right now I'm trying to get into the Alderny Farmers Market, I have a meeting next week with the lady in charge of deciding who can be a vender. Hopefully she like my stuff so I can get a tent to display my furniture! *fingers crossed*

New life to old shutters

I found these great shutters at Renovators Resource and thought they would be perfect to make old signs out of! First I mixed some homemade chalk paint in a grey/blue; once that was dry I stenciled on the lettering in an off white. After dry brushing a bright red on the sign, I distressed the whole thing with my electric sander. All I need to do is get a picture hanging kit and it's done!

Detail:

Curbside Giveaway Finds

Last weekend was the HRM's Curbside Giveaway. To anyone who isn't aware of this, it's an event held twice a year in the HRM where you can put anything you want to get rid of at the end of your driveway for others to take. I was sooo excited about it this year, since i knew there would be tones of furniture around town. SO, at 8am on Saturday I got up, quickly got ready, and me and Mom went hunting! I ended up finding some really great pieces. I found a lovely solid wooden dresser and a funky side table, but the best find was definitely this old vanity which had so much potential!

I've already started working on the vanity. As you can see in this picture (sorry about the poor quality, I took it from my phone) I have already sanded the top down to bare wood to be stained. My plan is to stain the top and paint the rest, and also change the hardware. I'll post more pictures with my progress!

First Sale!

I just had to make a quick post about my first sale! I sold the Pie Cabinet to someone who I know will appreciate its funky quality! The money went right into my Portugal fund : )

First Re-Upholstered Chair

In my last post I mentioned how I started my first re-upholstery project on a chair I bought for $14.99 at Value Village. Well here are the results! I’m pretty happy with it, considering it was my first attempt at re-upholstery. I probably could have pulled the fabric tighter on the bottom, and the back could have used a little more padding, but I really like how it looks! So without delay, here’s my first re-upholstered chair : )

                

                      Before:                                                                      After:

                                  

Things going on...

I figured I should post an update of what I've been up to lately. Last Sunday I bought a great dining/living room chair from Value Village for $14.99. It was an upholstered wooden chair with woven sides, and it needs LOTS of work. The fabric was really old and dirty (and auqa crushed velvet, ouch!), so I have since ripped that off and taken the seat off the frame. This was a much bigger task then I thought it would be. Who ever built this thing did not want it to be taken apart. It had more glue and staples in the fabric then a Christmas parade float! After I finally got all the fabric off, I painted the chair a nice creamy white, distressed it, and then used Minwax Dark Paste Wax. When I get home I’ll post some pictures of my progress with the chair : )

Today’s my birthday, and at 6am Eric woke me up, made me breakfast, and gave me flowers, chocolate, and a Mastercraft Electric Sander! It’s only us DIY chickies that can appreciate this present, and I tried it before I got a chance to get dressed this morning haha.

Finally, I ordered my own business cards! This is the basic layout, with a some information removed : )

Have a good Wednesday!

Vintage Vanity

This was a vanity that was sitting in my mom's storage for a while, and since she had no room for it, it was given to me! As soon as I saw it I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. I think that's how the best DIY projects come to be. If you have instant inspiration then it has a better chance of being something great!

I really wish I had of taken a 'Before' picture of this, but my camera decided to be a piece of crap before i started. If you can imagine, this was in really hard shape. It was painted white at some point, because there were traces of the old paint in certain areas, but mostly it was just wood. 

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Homemade Chalk Paint

I'm so excited that I found this recipe! Chalk paint can be hard to find (as I have discovered with most things), so this homemade recipe is great since the ingredients are accessible! I purchased the plaster of paris from DeSerres for $7.98/ 2kg bag.

Another Coffee Table

It took me a long time to figure out what to do with this table. I purchased it at the Salvation Army for $7.99 and it had a chip in the corner of the glass top. I decided to paint it with a slight crackle finish, using a green for the base coat and a nice vintage cream colour for the top coat. I also plan on antiquing the finished paint!

After sanding it down I primed it with the usual Sico primer, followed by 2 coats of paint in Pittsburgh Kitchen and Bath Satin. 


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Pie Cabinet

This Pie Cabinet has been around since I was little. My Mom found it at a yard sale and painted it white, which I eventually painted pictures of my toys on. After sitting in the storage unit for a while, my mom dug it out and gave it to me to flip!

 First I had to sand off the Beanie Baby designs so that the outlines didn't show through on the new paint. After giving it 2 coats of Sico primer I applied the base coat for my Crackle finish. I've never done this before and have always wanted to give it a try! For the base colour I used Fudge Truffle in Pittsburgh Pure Performance.

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My First Table!

For my first project I decided to go with something simple... a coffee table!

One idea I was really eager to try was tiling a table top. I was inspired to try this after my recent trip to Mexico with my Mom and Sister, where I saw a beautiful solid wood table in a restaurant which had ornate tiles covering the top. I gave the table a good look and decided it probably wouldn’t be that hard to re-create back home! So that was my plan for the first project - to create a Mexican inspired piece which was colourful and different.

First I found the coffee table in our local Value Village for $29.99. A little steep considering where I found it, but it had loads of character and I had to get it. (Read More...)