Before/After Antique Secretary

A couple months ago I bought a can of creamy white paint. First I painted a dresser. Then a stool. Then a table. And now it's an antique secretary that had seen better days. I had to use that orange goo remover to get rid of all the oil and grime (it's from Craigslist, so it's not *my* dirt and grime) ;-)

And voila'! I just LOvEs me some creamy paint! What a difference, yes?

My paint can is not empty yet....... and I spy another vintage table and chair.... stay tuned!

Before and After hutch - from 'lodge" to "beach"

Time for a change. This skinny bookshelf/hutch thingy has moved into the hallway for added storage. The finish is fine, here in the living room.....


But too dark for this bright room.....So it got a makeover with fresh coats of "toasted almond" paint and now holds my beachy momentos with plenty of room on the bottom for extra towels.


I'm keeping it close to monotone as I can and I love seeing my loved ones smiling back at me.....

My $50 leather club chair from craigslist

Wheee! I love a good bargain! I spotted this on craigslist and jumped at it. Yes, it comes to me already distressed. I think there are leather kits for for putting the color back on where it's been rubbed off.


I have been looking for a leather club chair for quite a while and I had to drive an hour to get this one. Check out that great wood trim and nail heads. I haven't got to clean this yet. I can see some old, white wood polish in the grooves.


It's huge! I can even sit sideways with my legs dangling off the arm. This is going to be so comfortable to curl up with a book during the winter nights.....


And the color is just right. (well, if you overlook those rubbed spots!) But I don't mind this distressed look at all. This chair is sooooo heavy! 2 people can barely lift it. (If one of those 2 people happen to be me.)


Tell me what you think..... should I get a kit and color the rubbed off spots? Should I leave it alone? Does it look too shabby?

Before and After linen cabinet

For those of you who can't stand wood furniture being painted - look away now! You've been warned....... ;-)

Got a 14" deep cabinet from Craigslist that had a dark brown stain. This isn't a valuable piece, no dovetailing or important wood. As this is to sit in the hallway, the dark color just didn't work. It's ok as is....but I wanted something more rustic.

So I painted it gray and antiqued it with dark stain. The glass had to go because the door needs to shimmy into place and the glass would keep the door too straight to close. Bummer. I took off the top decorative thingy and have saved it for another project down the road.


I stapled on a thick fabric scrap that I already had. I actually like fabric rather than glass because of the warmth and tone of fabric - and more decorating possibilities.


Then I stood back and lived with this for about a day and decided that it was still too dark for the hallway and besides, the wonderful carved details were lost in that darkness.


So I started adding some blue and cream paint and more stain on top of that......


Ahh, now the details are showing up. See the little balls of cream on blue shells? All nicely carved. The staining helps show the depth.


I added the wooden flower because it seemed to need a little something there. I smoothed out the stain with a little more paint to even out the panels.


What a change in personality! This will give me more linen storage, right outside the hall bathroom, which has a gray and white toile decor. Sorry for the low lighting - I had to stand in the bathroom to get the full picture.




A great spot above to display my small collection of vintage Blue Willow Plates.


And what a nice coincidence that I had a plant container with blue vines, just like the fabric!

This is one of my favorite statuettes - a small boy and his dog is so sweet. Set on vintage books.


Nice gams....


I'm linking up to Between Naps on the Porch's Met Monday. Click on the butterfly to see more "Before and After" posts from creative bloggers:

Before and After pillow

Got this pillow off Craigslist for $5 because I wanted to personalize it for my daughter's new, pinky bedroom. I was attracted to the black ribbon and sequins adornment. This is the Before:

And this is the after. I tea-stained it, sewed on pink heart-shaped buttons and added embroidered, iron-on lettering and a jeweled crown.

Looks fab on her pinky chair and she loves to see her nickname on it.
I'm linking up to Between Naps on the Porch's Met Monday. Click on the butterfly to see more "Before and After" posts from creative bloggers:

Down-filled chairs.......

What is it with me and my love for buying Craigslist chairs? Dunno, but it's a cheap enough hobby.

Lookie here what I got today - 2 fine chairs that a family was selling so they could move to Florida. The first one was for $30 and is down-filled. Great upholstery and carved wooden legs.





The other chair was $13 and is a soft pink with mahogany arms and legs. It fits in great with DD's new pink bedroom:



I did sell my deacon's bench to make room for the pink chair - but with that money, I got 2 great chairs.

Glass display case + thrift store drape panel

Scored a very nice Waverly window panel at the thrift store last week and didn't know how I'd use it at the time. Then, I got inspired by reading other blogs and in an instant I knew what to do with it.

Here is my grandmother's dresser with my mom's glass display case on top. The contents are rather boring and they are really just sentimental objects to me, and not really of interest to anyone else. So, I wanted to store them behind a closed door.

Ta-da! A little hot glue, scissors and a ruler to cut up the 5 panels was all it took to bring these pieces up to date. I really like how it turned out. For only $3.99.

A tablecloth + a Craigslist chair = start of redecorating guest room

The guest room will be changed over to a personal bedroom by my lovely DD who likes bright, clear colors. By chance, at a thrift store this past weekend, we found 2 large tablecloths that have all the great colors that she wants.

And then I found this beautiful chair on Craigslist ($50)- that had only been up on the board for a few minutes! I will pick this baby up on Saturday. My plan is using the more sedate colors/pattern of the chair to balance DD's bright flower colors. The rest of the furniture in the room is dark antiques, so I think this punch of color will liven and update the room.





The fabric will be used as a headboard slipcover and as a wall hanging. I'm getting started on this right away! More pics coming soon!

What a delightful situation..... TWO antique Singers

Wow - When Mr. Artistic Shoestring brought home the Craigslist Singer machine, he asked a neighbor for help bringing it in from the van. The neighbor, who is very, very nice, said sure and helped. Then he asked if we wanted ANOTHER one, just like this one. Heck yeah! sez I. (He just GAVE it away, happy to be rid of it!!)

Now I have 2 very beautiful, though very grimy antique Singers. The neighbor's wood cabinet is nicer, having 6 drawers, instead of the 4 on the other one. I looked up their serial numbers and both were made in 1919.

Isn't that a lovely appliqué?

I have been researching how to properly clean these and I'm pretty confident that I can get them looking pretty great.

Since I don't need 2 sewing machines, some lucky family member will be gifted one of these beauties..... Who? Well it just depends on who can spoil me the most! ;-)

Old Singer for an old gal..........Update

I apologize for the blurry pics. These are from the Craigslist posting and I will take better ones later.......



I kept thinking about this sewing machine (for only $60) all night. It looks like my
grandmother's, who has turned 103. I used to play on the treadle by
climbing on and rocking. Good thing grams never caught me! Then, in
high school, I learned sewing in Home Ec on one of these old Singer
machines. My BFF, Deb, and I would have a race with ours to see who could get theirs to sew the fastest. We were both on the treadle. I laugh now to think how our feet looked, pumping that fast and us giggling the whole way!

I've convinced myself that I need this machine and I will
start sewing again if I had a treadle (I hate electric sewers - they
get away from me and get the thread all knotted up.)

So.....I emailed the person on Craigslist to see if this is still available for an antique of a gal, like myself. We exquisite antiques stick together like that. Huh, Lori E? LOL

Update: I'm getting it! Yippee! I can hardly wait to try it out. I'll let you know how it works very soon! From my limited research, it's called a Singer Model 66 Red Eye Treadle. Here are some pics from a website: