She's got legs!

Recognize the little table I brought home from Reno,
all dressed up and ready to go?
Love those legs! 

The 'before' picture.

 Notice the change of floor covering? Since I could only photograph the table in my work room I decided to cover the drop cloth with burlap. I found this giant piece of burlap at the Army Navy store and thought it would be a good rug. It's a little thin but I think I'll paint a graphic on it and use it for photography.

I didn't fix or fill boo-boos. The table has so much of its own patina and I didn't want to take that away.

 

 

I had soooo much fun doing this table! It was so freeing after doing a few harlequin pieces. I had no idea what was going to happen because of the resist (which I put on randomly and later couldn't remember where it was.)

 

My work room is so small I had to sit in the closet for this shot.

I used such a merry mixture of paint on this table that I'm having a hard time remembering what I did. I mixed ASCP Duck Egg Blue with CeCe Caldwell Alaska Tundra for the green. The yellow is mostly Arles with some Mississippi Mud. I used chapstick and petroleum jelly for the resist. Then I finished off with clear and dark waxes.
The table top was sanded and stained American Walnut followed by layers and layers of wipe-on ploy.

The End.

Linking to:
diy show off
under the table and dreaming
mod vintage life
my uncommon slice of suburbia
primitive and proper
elizabeth and co.
the rustic pig
miss mustard seed
thrifty decor chick

The biggest little city in the west

We just got back from Reno where the family celebrated November birthdays. Mr. Really-Bad, my father-in-law, was a vendor at the antique arms show so he was pretty much stuck in the hotel. He missed out on all the junking and antiquing fun we had. Mr. Bad and I headed out of town as soon as we could to see what
we could find.

We were wandering down the street in Virginia City, ducking out of the wind when we could, and we ducked into a little antique shop that had some painted furniture. I went nuts over the patina on this table, which turned out to be as the seller
found it. Lucky girl!

If ever you get to Nevada, try to get to Virginia City. Just the drive up there is wonderful and scenic.

The high desert is so beautiful.

Unlucky us, we were there on a day with 32 mph wind gusts and a 'real feel' of 21°. I was so c-c-cold! But we sucked it up and carried on. 

One of our goals was to see wild horses and our new furniture-painting friend told us they hang out at the cemetery. Exploring the cemetery was on our list to do anyway, so off we went.

Well, brrrrr. The cemetery in on a hill. A windswept hill. We took a photo of exactly one gravestone and then kept our hands in our pockets. Until.....

Wild horse poop!
There must be a pony somewhere! Sadly all we saw was manure but it was as close as I've ever been to a mustang, so I was good with that. And brrrrr. I was so cold I couldn't think.

I had my scarf wrapped around my head. You can see the wind whipping my coat.

It was time to go back to Reno, junking as we went.

Our finds:

 Wonderful old drop-leaf table.

1950's formica table. My new obsession.

Odds and ends

Eagle pulls. I don't know what I'll be doing with them yet.

A chunk of door and some unusual stove legs.

I love these legs!

That was all we could fit in the truck because we also bought an old microwave/oven combo from the ReStore. It was our only real gamble in Reno!

Just when we moved into our home 16 years ago the microwave part of the built-in oven unit died. We got estimates to fix it and they were crazy! Like $1500 crazy! We decided to live with it since the oven worked.

I used the broken micro as a cupboard and we put our micro from the old house in the cabinet above.

Problem solved. And we had all those entertaining moments finding guests taking everything out of the old microwave in order to use it.

Then a couple weeks ago we decided to replace the whole unit. (I deny that it was either that or clean the oven.) We shopped and found that built-ins were spendy. We decided on a $3200 unit and put off purchasing it until after Reno. Where we found a slightly newer (barely newer. Maybe by minutes. Seconds, even.) unit while looking for cabinet pulls. YAY us!

$30 instead of $3200? YOU BET! I don't care if its old (and not real pretty), it WORKS.

All the way from Reno!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Before we went off to share the day with friends I took pictures, finally, of the teaser fall tables I posted a few days ago. We had some sun! It was cold, but that's okay.

Here are my little fall tables.

The rectangle table.

And the round table.

 

Finally, the square table.

Each table's leaves are unique.

I hand-painted them watercolor style.

 Inspector 19 dwarfing yet another table.

 There they are, my three little odes to fall - the best time of the year! Tomorrow I'll get them listed on etsy and hopefully soon they'll have a new home.

What did I use?

Mustard-colored Oops paint, Pumpkin Spice Milk Paint and light and dark waxes.

Plus craft paint for the leaves.

Linking to:
shabby nest
french country cottage
diy show off
under the table and dreaming
mod vintage life
my uncommon slice of suburbia
primitive and proper

elizabeth and co.
the rustic pig
miss mustard seed

And another one's done and another one's done and another one ...

I didn't think I'd be able to post about this table so soon but I was
able to deliver to its new owner yesterday.
Now I won't be ruining the surprise.

Soon after I purchased this table the seller contacted me to say his girlfriend had wanted to keep it. oops. So he had me paint it for her.

I had fun on this one. I really like doing illustration on a piece.

A couple shots from the back.

Oooooo. Soft focus. I LOVE my new camera!

Nice curve on the top

Top corner

 Bottom corner detail. Ya gotta have a distressed corner.

A little crackle here and there. I use the two-step crackle very, very sparingly. To my eye the large crackle finishes available look too artificial. The two-step method is more time consuming but I like it better so it's worth it. Again, I use it sparingly.

  

What I used: Benjamin Moore Aura in matte black, black craft paint, a merry mixture of CeCe Caldwell paints in neutral colors and metallic bronze craft paint. I distressed with water and a green scrubbing pad (I buy them in bulk at my local Goodwill). The topcoat over everything but the center of the main table is wipe-on satin poly. The randomly crackled center is topcoated with gloss poly for an 'inset' look.

This scale shot didn't work out so well. The table is quite large but Inspector 19 is a ginormous cat so he dwarfs it.

That was the last of the custom orders I had to get done this month, so now I can get to a dresser that has been waiting in the wings ... as soon as I remember the brilliant idea I had for it ....

Linking to:
primitive and proper
knick of time interiors
between naps on the porch
mod vintage life
miss mustard seed
shabby nest
french country cottage