Vintage Cane Back Chairs in Old White

I just got home from the opening party for Loot!  I had so much fun, met so many wonderful people and made a few sales.  I even met one of my lovely, local blog followers!  Thanks for coming, Marsha :)  I will do another post after this weekend with more pictures of the shop.

In the meantime, I promised pictures of my vintage, Frenchy, cane back chairs, so here they are. To see my post about finding these chairs click here.

Just a reminder of what they looked like when I bought them:

 I know it took me a while to start working on these chairs.  I bought them in April and here it is July before I finished them!  I had to wait until I had enough money for my chalk paint order.  I did not want to sand and primer each chair.  Believe me, chairs are a lot of work!  During this project I kept saying, "I will never do chairs again!"  All the little parts make it really tedious to paint, but now that they are done....maybe I would try it again.

I painted the chairs with Chalk Paint in Old White.  I finished them with Fiddes & Sons clear wax and I like how the wax made the Old white creamier in color.  

I love how they look around Nancy's antique farm table at Loot!  

I bleached a drop cloth and reupholstered the seat cushions with it.  I was a bit worried because I did not want to do the welting cord (this project was time consuming enough already).  It worked out fine after I removed the mustard velvet and used my mom's amazing pneumatic staple gun to finish the job. No cording necessary!

I am lucky the caning on all the chairs is in such flawless condition.

 

Here is a picture the chairs in our front showroom at Loot.  

I will show you more pictures of Loot after this busy opening weekend!

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My New Shop: Loot

I am so excited to share the news with all of you that I am opening a new shop, Loot,  just a few miles down the road from my house in Soquel!  My partner, Nancy had a successful shop around the corner, but had to close, unexpectedly, because her landlord ended her lease.  I happened to stop in her shop for the closing sale and I left my name and number with her daughter because I wanted to find a place to sell my merchandise closer to home.  We met for coffee and she told me about this adorable little quonset hut for rent on Main Street and we decided to go for it!  Nancy is such a talented decorator and she has so many amazing pieces. I love how everything is coming together at the shop and I am thrilled to have this opportunity. I had such a great experience selling my reloved rubbish at Blessings Boutique for the last year and I really appreciate my time there too. 

We have been working long days trying to get ready for our grand opening this coming weekend.  We are on a tight budget, so Nancy gave me her old sign to paint over and make a new sign for our shop.  She picked out the color scheme and I brought it home to see what I could do with it.

I picked out a font I liked, printed out the letters and then enlarged them to the right size on my copier.  I used a craft knife to cut the letters out onto freezer paper, as makeshift stencils.  

I painted the sign a rusty red and used the bright yellow to stencil the letters.  For the byline, I used graphite paper  to trace it onto the sign and then filled it in with an acrylic paint pen.  Have I mentioned, how much I love acrylic paint pens?  They sure come in handy and make it so easy to stay in the lines.

Now, I just need to get Mr. Rubbish to hang the sign for us.

Of course, all of my lovely blog readers are invited to the preview party this coming Friday, July 15th, from 5-7pm.  If any of you live close enough, I would love for you to come!  We are also having the grand opening of Loot this Saturday and Sunday from 8am-4pm.  Loot is going to be open one weekend per month (3rd weekend of month) and by appointment.  

The location:

Loot

3011 Main Street

Soquel, CA 95073


lootvintage.blogspot.com

I will be posting more pictures of Loot in the next few days.  I, also, finally finished my cane back chairs and got them into the shop!  I will try to post pictures tomorrow.  Busy, busy, busy....

Duck Egg Blue Nightstand

I love the Duck Egg Blue Chalk Paint and I finally finished painting my nightstand with it.

I picked up this nightstand at my local thrift shop for $8.  It is a really heavy piece of furniture for being so small.  It was in pretty rough shape when I found it, but aren't the legs cute?  I patched all the thin cracks with wood filler.  I also patched the drawer pull holes with wood filler because I wanted to put single knobs in the center of the drawers.

This is how the nightstand looked all dressed up, with two coats of Duck Egg Blue, accessorized with pretty, crystal knobs.  I found these crystal knobs at a yard sale and got a whole box of them for only $5!  The woman I bought them from ordered them for her whole kitchen and then decided she did not really like them. 

After distressing the edges, I applied a coat of clear wax with my wax brush.  I am really loving the Duck Egg Blue color and I like how the wax seemed to make the color more subdued.

The inside of the drawers were in pretty bad shape, so I got out my Mod Podge and lined them with some vintage sheet music.

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Paris Gray Mini Chandelier

I was surprised to find the exact same vintage chandelier twice! remember the first one I found and painted turquoise (click here to see it)?  I bought the first one for $5 and this one was only $3 at a different yard sale.

I could not find the before pictures of the second chandelier, but since it is the same as the previous one, here is the picture of the first chandelier before I painted it turquoise.

It was just a plain, little, iron chandelier, when I found it.

This morning, as the sunlight was brilliantly filtering through the trees, I decided to take my finished, crystal chandelier on a nature hike down to the creek for a little photo shoot. 

I used Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint in Paris Gray to start the transformation.  I had already primed the chandelier before I bought the Chalk Paint, but I do not think there is a need to do that because Chalk Paint adheres to metal.  I used a little bit of dark wax over the Paris Gray paint to give the chandelier more depth.

I ordered 30 vintage crystals for a vintage chandelier I am redoing for my kitchen.  I had a few extra that I hung from the center of this mini chandelier.  I ordered the crystal strands from Gallery, which is the cheapest place I could find them online.  

I just love how chandeliers look hanging outside, from tree branches.

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