Vintage Teacher's Desk

One day, while shopping at our local thrift shop, Mr. Rubbish and I spotted this rough looking, old teacher's desk outside with a five dollar price tag.  It may be hard to tell by the pictures, but this desk is gigantic and I was not sure if we could find a place for it to fit at Loot.  For five dollars we decided to give it a try!

The finish was really beat up, but I love the school house look.  I work at an elementary school and the day after I bought it, I saw this same desk in the computer lab.

This desk is oversized and masculine, so I picked two colors that would complement these features.  I painted the top with Graphite Chalk Paint and the base with Chateau Gray.  I painted the wooden handles with Graphite too and left the tiny, metal feet brass.

This desk is not meant to be against a wall because the back is finished too.  Mr. Rubbish helped me on this piece by waxing the massive surface area of this desk with Annie Sloan clear wax.  I applied dark wax over everything when he finished clear waxing.  

I never did find a spot in the shop for this desk.  It actually never moved out of our storage container until it sold.  I listed it on craigslist and a local high school teacher bought it for her classroom.  I am happy that this discarded, old teacher's desk made it back into a school!

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Verdigris Bird Lamps

My sister-in-law found these unique bird lamps at a thrift store in Pennsylvania and bought them for me for Christmas.  My parents went to visit them at Christmas time and my mom brought them back for me in her suitcase.  I finally got them when I visited my family on my birthday back in February.  I love these lamps!  I finished painting them a while ago, but I had to wait to find the perfect shades.

This is what the pair looked like when I got them.  They are vintage (I am guessing 80s) with a copper finish, which gave me the idea to make them copper verdigris.

They look elegant atop my Louis Blue and Graphite Buffet.

It took me a while to find the right shades for this pair.  I wanted them to be simple because I did not want to detract from the beautiful detailing of the lamps.  I went to Target and brought back shades at least three different times and none of them seemed to be a perfect fit.  Finally, I know this is probably obvious to everyone else, Nancy suggested I take a lamp with me and try the shades on there. Well, I already knew that Target did not have the right shades for me, so I started to look around locally.  On the way home from the farmer's market, I spotted a local family-owned company, Riverside Lighting, whose windows were full of, what seemed like hundreds, of lamps and shades.  I made my way over there the next day and they have an entire room of just lampshades!  Plus, they were 20% off that day and I found the perfect pair of shades!  They are sophisticated, creamy linen with a simple drum shape and I think they look just right in scale and style on the bird lamps.

To create the verdigris look over the copper finish, I mixed Provence and Chateau Gray Chalk Paint.  Then, I dry brushed it over the lamps, letting the copper show through.  For those of you that have not tried Annie Sloan Chalk Paint over metal yet, I can tell you it does an amazing job of adhering.  I did not even wax over top of the paint because I thought the chalky look and feel made the verdigris finish seem authentic.

These beautiful, bird lamps are for sale at Loot.

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