China Cabinet with Secretary

I picked up this china cabinet from the flea market recently for a great price toward the end of the day. It is really heavy and I could tell the man selling it wanted to get rid of it, so he didn't have to haul it back home again.

I love the doors, trim moldings and metal wire fronts on the cabinet.  The man that sold it to me also gave me the orignial old skeleton key that locks all the cabinet doors.

This cabinet is really special and even has a secret secretary in the center, disguised as a drawer.

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I mixed a batch of Chalk Paint® using equal parts French Linen and Old Ochre.  The resulting color is a soft and pretty, warm grey.

I clear waxed the entire piece and applied the dark wax with an artist brush only along the edges, grooves, and molding to bring out the details on this lovely piece of furniture.

The upper cabinet was dark inside, so I lightened it up by painting the interior with Old Ochre Chalk Paint®.

This amazing cabinet did not last very long at Loot.  This is one that I would have kept for myself, had I the space for it. Besides being easy on the eyes, it is also a very functional piece.  I love the amount of storage it has and the added convenience of a little desk, which is an ideal place for sitting to write letters and/or pay bills.

Goat Hill Fair 2014

We finished setting up our booth for Goat Hill Fair this weekend.  It was a tremendous amount of work, but the outcome is well worth the energy expenditure.

The setup took two whole days!  It is amazing how much Chalk Paint®  and other merchandise we were able to cram into our booth.

We will be doing Chalk Paint®  demos during the show on Saturday and Sunday.  We are sharing this space with Magpie, another Chalk Paint®  retailer from San Jose.

We made several shutter door light fixtures by mounting old wall sconces to them, like the pair I made for my apartment a few months ago.

We love our steer head planted with succulents!

Our deer antlers are lit with tiny lights.

We have a beach area with lots of Duck Egg blue Chalk Paint®.

This cute little cabinet is painted with Old White on the inside and Provence with a Florence wash on the exterior.

We are selling metal letters made form recycled oil drums.

More wall sconces mounted on shutter doors and an antique bathtub filled with Annie Sloan Wax

Paint Brush Display

I am so excited for this weekend!  If you live close to Santa Cruz, I hope you can make it to this amazing antique and artisan fair.  There are so many fabulous booths set up by talented people.  It is located at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds in Watsonville, CA.  http://www.goathillfair.com/

Amazing Chalk Paint® Transformation on Oak Kitchen Cabinets

A few months ago, I was hired to paint the dated, oak cabinets in this spacious kitchen.  The owners wanted a custom look without replacing all the cabinetry, which would be quite costly in a kitchen this size.  

Before

The kitchen looked drab and uninviting before, with the heavily grained oak overpowering the whole space. It was definitely the perfect time for a fresh look in this kitchen.

After

After scrubbing the cabinet doors with an orange oil cleaner, I applied three coats of Old Ochre Chalk Paint® to cover the open grain of the oak. I sanded all the doors using super fine, 600 grit sandpaper before painting the third coat.  After the final coat of paint, I used 220 grit sandpaper to sand all the edges, adding dimension to the drawers and doors. When all the sanding was done, I applied two coats of Annie Sloan's Clear Wax over the paint and the finish turned out smooth and silky.

The man of the house, who happens to be a contracter with an eye for detail, was fairly skeptical that Chalk Paint® would live up to its reputation as the best paint in the world.  I think he was also a little bit doubtful in my ability to handle painting a kitchen this large all by myself and, although I did not let it show, I was a bit doubtful myself (my business partner sprained her ankle the first day on the job). However, by the time I finished painting all the cabinets, he was singing praises!

The old linoleum was replaced with a rich, dark, hardwood, which offers the perfect complement to the creamy cabinetry.

Initially, the owners were considering replacing the tile countertops with a solid surface, like granite, but after seeing the painted cabinets paired with the tile, they love the combination and decided to keep the tile.

They put iron cup pulls and knobs on the cabinetry, which definitely added to the new custom look of the kitchen.

 Old Ochre is a beautiful, soft color and it brings much needed warmth to this spacious kitchen.

Another enhancement the owners added to the cabinetry, is the lovely crown molding on top. This is such a small detail, but it made a monumental improvement to the look of the kitchen cabinets. 

The final improvement to this kitchen was replacing the boxed-in flourescent light with an elegant iron light fixture.  What a lovely kitchen we created together!

Custom Painted Built-in Cabinet

Nancy and I were recently hired by customers at Loot to paint this freshly made, built-in cabinet that sits in a corner of their newly remodeled kitchen.  

Before

The cabinet started out with unfinished wood.

After

Our customers chose Versailles Chalk Paint for the exterior and Old White Chalk Paint for the inside of the cabinet.  

The customers wanted some dimension, so we distressed all the edges and then applied Annie Sloan clear wax, followed by dark wax.  Instead of applying the dark wax over the entire cabinet, we used a small artist brush to paint the dark wax into all the grooves and edges. We did this same dark wax technique on the painted beadboard on the inside of the built-in.

Our customers were thrilled with their newly painted built-in cabinet!  These two Chalk Paint colors look absolutely perfect against the pale, creamy wall color and also tie in with the warm tones in the hardwood floors.