The art project

A friend of mine asked me to paint a chair for her, oh, about 1 1/2 years ago. I think. It was a long time ago, anyway. She said to do what I wanted. Well, this little chair has history and that made it a little more challenging. It is a special chair and I wisely (!) waited until I was inspired.

And then

My friend was given a piece of art done by renowned painter, Eugene Bennet, who lived and painted near here until his death a couple years ago. More history, and I had my inspiration. The painting was done on an old door and I decided to paint the old chair to compliment it.

I didn't take 'before' shots. I'm getting really bad about that again! So here is the finished piece.

 

Yes, I was running all over chasing the fleeting sun. This is a chair travelog of my farm. Or a new game! Where on the Farm is Shelly's Chair?

 

 This little chair has awesome texture.

  

The seat is made of buckskin that my friend has had for years.

 

The buckskin isn't the right material for a seat like this - it's far too thin and stretchy. So, I lined the back with canvas to give it strength. This chair is strictly decorative but I wanted to be sure.

Reason number one: why this chair is decorative-only.

And reason number two - nails coming through the brittle wood. There are other little injuries on the chair all adding up to Don't Sit Here.

And finally, the chair with the door that inspired it.

Linking to:

diy show off

savvy southern style
chic on a shoestring decorating

miss mustardseed
domestically-speaking
my uncommon slice of suburbia

You will be mine, you will be mine, all mine.

I have gone on and on about my love for empire-style furniture, right? On and on. Do I personally own a piece? Why, yes, FINALLY! 

All my painted empire furniture has gone off to other homes. That's because I have done large pieces that I don't have room for.

Enter the Low Boy. I saw this little beast in the dark basement of a consignment shop and paid too much money for it, meaning I couldn't paint it and sell it, except to just break even. No. This one would be mine. MINE!

I thought I would refinish it and paint the trim Old White but in the light of day I saw all the flaws I didn't see in the dark. Yikes. This one would get painted. Eventually. 

Finally, weeks later I was walking by and thought "Hey, I have some free time."  I grabbed paint and went about experimenting with brush stroke and layering technique.

I don't have a 'before' picture but you've seen enough tattered furniture to know what it looked like.

I decided to keep it really rustic. That meant brush strokes going willy-nilly and lots of paint mixing. Followed by lots of sanding. Followed by "Ewww." Followed by more painting. And so on and so on until the end. Or until I tackle it again. Who knows.

The wood was split a couple places but that's character, right?

And whatever happened to this veneer? 

  

I experimented with different browns and sanding techniques. I have to say, I love water and scotch-brite.

And the same with white paint. Paint sand wax paint sand wax paint sand wax. Repeat.

 

I have an extremely fragile and broken stained glass window that I've kept but couldn't really use. It now graces the top of the low boy and I really like it there. I'll paint the frame ... eventually. I have a sheet of glass set in over the leaded glass, to keep it safe. I need to get a piece cut for underneath so the window is supported.

  

Broken. I have to be crazy-careful when I move it.

 My work-in-progress low boy. Mine! 

Linking to:
diy show off
miss mustard seed
savvy southern style
chic on a shoestring decorating

What could it be, now?

 UPDATE

Some wonderful people have commented that this is an 1800's American Empire Butler's Secretary. The wood is Flaming Mahogany. Who knew? Thanks everyone!

My in-laws were here a few weeks ago and they brought with them this fabulous piece of furniture.

This beauty is big and dramatic. It has gorgeous details. But what is it exactly? I know it's a secretary, but how old? Is it European? British? What kind of wood is that? What is this style called?

Brass insets.

Cool pulls.

More cool pulls. Lions? Panthers?

The feet are huge!

Tin mirrors! I'd never heard of tin mirrors.

Inside.

And finally, a writing surface inside the top drawer.

Cool, huh?

I've googled but didn't find anything that looked like this. Anyone know what it is?

Am I going to paint it? Nope. This big boy is way too fabulous. I have no idea what I'll do with it. Mr. Bad wants to keep it but I have another piece of furniture waiting for this spot. (Empire dresser, be still my heart.)

Decisions. Decisions.

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!