Perfect. Moi?

I have a confession.  A real life confession.  It's a biggie.  Are you sitting comfortably?  Are you sure you are ready to hear this?  O.K.  Here goes.

I made a mistake.  Yes really. I, Ms Debell, made a mistake.  There, I've said it.  I feel lifted.  I expect you want details now.  Here goes nothing.

I refurbished a chest of drawers a couple of weeks ago and I just do not like them.  They are just not right.  Yes they are pretty.  Yes, they are better than they were.  But they are just not blowing my skirt up. I don't want to just sit and look at them and sigh in a mournful voice, collecting my devastation, at having to sell them.  So what to do?

I was going to add rope handles - but I just cant bring myself to do it.  So should I strip the paper and paint on a lovely image like this one I did on a recent blanket box only bigger?

French Script Blanket Box.

Or should I just add the rope handles and go with it?  Problem is I just do not know.  So can you help?  Ditsy paper - stay or go?  You decide.

(Do you think the fact I only have 1, very bad, picture is indicative of my feelings for this poor old chest?).


M x

Hmmmm...decisions.

Food, Glorious Food.

As I sit here I am looking out of the window and dreaming of summer.  I say dreaming because currently there are enormous, fat and snowflakes hurtling at speed toward the ground.   Not the nice fluffy soft snow.  Oh no.  The wet, stinging, cold rain kind. Summer seems a very, very long way away.  So last night we pretended it was actually midsummer and we took a trip to Spain, (well in our heads).  This morning my head is paying for it.

We have been making the Charcuterie Boards / Cheese Boards / Bread Boards for a little while now, but have not actually used one ourselves.  Bad me.  So last night the time came.  In a Spanish themed gastronomic extravaganza we used our own personal board for the serving of Spanish meats.  Want to see?

Yew Wood Charcuterie Board

Yum. Yum.

If you like the boards you can buy them here in my Etsy Shop.  The Husband followed up the board with a delicious Paella.  I suppose you want to see that now too?

Paella at home.

Yum.  After a quick clean down the board was transformed into a cheese platter.  Had I not had several glasses of Grape Juice I would have taken a picture.  But I forgot.  Whoopsie.

So what else is new?  Weeeeeelll...I have sort of moved into my studio / showroom but since the boys essentially did a flit...took what they needed and left what they didn't, it has not exactly been a smooth transition - for me at least.

I have 4 desks and a office meeting table and chairs currently squatting in my beautiful space.  On the plus side I have put them on eBay, but the boys seem to think they should get the proceeds?  Hmmm.  We will see about that.

Once I was finally able to get to some painting on Friday I had a lovely time.  Space and light - a painters dream.  I finished off my 'Half and Half' before and after demo TV cabinet (bottom left), painted and finished a lovely side table in Country Grey & French Linen, (top left), started on a mirror frame in Cream (bottom right) and finished and waxed the dining chairs I blogged about last week, (top right) - I personally prefer them in solid colour rather than with bleed - but as we established already that was a whole other story.

All in a mornings work.

So next week brings excitement.  I'm hoping to drag the husband off the sofa shortly, (he is cleaning his gun after his latest clay shoot adventure), and we are going to rid my space of those laminated office furniture suckers.  They will be gone.  Assuming of course I can fight my way across the yard in the blizzard!

So with a week ahead that promises to be full of excitement and space filling I will sign off pull on my snowboots.  There must be at least a quarter of a centimeter out there now.

M x

P.S. A few little pictures below for your perusal.

Demonstration Painted Cabinet

Blue & Country Grey Chair.  John Lewis Fabric.

Painted Chairs

Country Grey & French Lined Annie Sloan Chalk Paint

Gorgeous Mirrors

Hand Painted Wardrobe Door

Studio - Day 1

Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya tomorrow.

Tomorrow is the day I get to move into the studio showroom.  How exciting!

I get to display all my stock in a way that doesn't involve dust cloths and won't require major removals to get to whichever item I have just sold, which is inevitably right at the back of the stable!  I just hope it is not as cold tomorrow as it has been today.  Snow, wind, rain, more snow and about 6 mini-blizzards.  Cold I can handle.  Cold and wind and all I want is a hot bath and a mug of soup.

It's been a funny old day - never mind that number 1 Tweep has been home from school with a sickness bug.  Thank's go out to my wonderful Mother-in-law, without whom I would not have managed as I was delivering a training session this morning, (that's the 'other' job - the one that pays the bills).

So, enough about me, lets talk about me.  My main concern, at this exact moment, is, should I display a sign out front?  I mean - I will have a sign, but, added to it should I have an Open / Closed notice? Should I say 'By Appointment' or just 'Open' or a 'Please Knock - If I'm In I'm Open'?  I personally like the last one - but your comments would be appreciated.  Requested?  Please help me?  I have no idea what to do!

Bear in mind there will sporadic hours - I am sometimes here, sometimes not.  I live in a small village and it's not like we will get loads of 'passing trade' so to speak.  So I just need to make clear that it's worth knocking on the door. Take a look at my frontage (how very Carry On).  This was last year and in 3 or 4 weeks the tree will be in bloom again:

Woodbine Magnolia 2012

I'm thinking the sign will hang over the hedge.  But how to communicate that I might or might not be open?

Open Forum below.  I need your help.

That is all for now.

M x

Woodbine Magnolia 2012

Busy Bee. Just a Quick Update.

Well The Husband is back on English soil as of 20 minutes ago.  I can't wait for him to get home.  But I have kept myself busy whilst he has been away.

Want so see?  Well you have twisted my arm.  You guys always persuade me to be a complete show off and get all those pictures I took 'just for my own records' on here for the entire world to see.  Really.  I know you are there, somewhere...anywhere...wanting to see what I am doing with my paint pots.  Lucky I am so modest and never brag.  Though I am quite pleased with this little lovely of a Boot Room:

BEFORE

Boot Room Cupboard 'After' Graphics via The Graphics Fairy

Close Up

Hope you like it!  I know I do.

Then we have my little Pictures.  I have quite a few new ones I have been creating.  Just a selection below, but if you are interested in buying them they are for sale and you can find them with prices on my Facebook Page or email me fiona@debell.me for information.

I also make personalised pictures on wood.  A funny little picture by a 7 year old demonstrates it below:

Gil Elvgren Pin-up on wood

Gil Elvgren Pin-up with live edge

Gil Elvgren Pin-up in Boudoir

What a lovely present

One of a set of 3 Underground Prints

How talented was this 7 year old?  A very stylised image for his mum on mothers day.

Paniting on white background

Transferred to wood and text added

And finally you can always have your own pictures added to a nice hunk of natural edged wood.

Your Own Pictures on Wood

I have also been creating some 'Half and Half' or should I say 'Before and After' items this week, but they can wait for another day.

Hope you like!

M x

Mini Tutorial. Work With What You have Or Seepage & Stain? Who Cares.

Painting furniture is not rocket science.  It is not even primary school science, but it is alchemy.

What do I mean ?  Simple really.  Anyone can pick up a paintbrush, open a can of paint and re-vamp an old chair, desk or sideboard.  My 5 year old could do that.  But would I want the results in my home?  Would I be proud to think that someone might assume I had painted it?  Um, no.  I love her dearly, but she is 5 and does not respect form and colour in quite the same way I do.

If furniture painting is so easy why do the majority of people junk their old, often beautifully made, furniture when they no longer love it? Simply answer my quiz below for the ultimate answer please reader.  

Quiz of the Day.

Can you walk into a junk shop and take one look at a run down desk with scratched and battered legs, a hole where a drawer used to be and veneer that looks like a toddler took a nail file to it and imagine it in a top end Bridal Boutique?  Can you imagine it displaying veils and tiaras, its drawers full of garters and hair accessories? If you can, by which I mean it's a compulsion, you are a furniture painter.  If you think I am off my rocker, you are a furniture buyer.

Disclaimer:  Not all furniture painters necessarily possess the skills despite having the vision.  They find this out once they try to implement the vision.

I may be waffling...I promised a mini tutorial, well here it is.  Its really about working with what you have and embracing the problems.

How to work with dark stained Oak when you really don't want to break out the primer.  A tutorial.

Over time I have learned a few things about painting furniture.  First and foremost I love it.  I get grumpy when I can't do it and I dream about it.  I get excited about new items and I love every single thing I paint. 

Practice helps me recognise the manner in which an item is going to behave once the paint hits it.  

Annie Sloan Chalk Paint is wonderful.  Autentico Paint is wonderful.  They are different animals, but both claim that in using them there will be no sanding & no priming.  In the main this is true.  There are exceptions, and this is what I want to talk about.  Dark Stained Old Oak - specifically Ercol.  

With an old, dark Ercol item there will always be seepage if you are using a water based paint - Chalk or not.  I can tell as soon as I see a piece that it will seep.  I know I will get bleed through.  Not a problem if I am working in a dark colour - there you go, Tip 1.  Paint Dark oak with dark paint. But what if the items warrant a pretty pastel or creamy finish? 

You can do one of 3 things.  

a) Use a quality Primer, (kind of defeats the object of using such lovely paint), but if you want to go ahead - it will work, but will probably need 2 primer coats - this stuff seeps through primer too.

b)  Get to work with your sandpaper / belt sander / plane.

c) Work with the seepage.  Yes you heard me right.  Embrace what you have.  Let the furniture tell it's story. Incidentally this is the least work heavy option, but don't let that fool you, it is the best option too.

So I am going for option c) here.

Take this post war Ercol Dining Chair for instance:

Dark Oak Ercol Dining Chair

This set was going to be trouble if I wanted a flat, clean, pristine finish.  But why would I want that? The shape is lovely, they have age and they have bumps and bruises testament to their life as well loved, well used furniture.  So I decided to love the seep, so to speak.  

Not yet seeping through

Can you see the seep starting?  Just one very rough coat applied.

Apply one coat of paint very roughly.  I used Annie Sloan Old Ochre.  Keep the brush wet.  Tickle the brush tip with a lick of water before you dip it in the paint, but don't overload the brush.

Paint roughly with a wet brush.

And paint.  Let the pattern lead you - don't try to get paint into every nook and cranny - that is not the point, but work with a light hand and a rough brush.  This is not about perfection.  

Then leave.  Walk away.  Make a cup of tea.  Eat some cake.  Give it time to dry.  And seep.  The seepage, (I know I am using that word a lot), may take minute or it may take days.  But it will happen.  And when it does - who cares.  Introducing the magic of 'Wax',

Painted - no wax.

Painted - dark wax

Now you may have noticed a couple of extras - a touch of blue here and there and newly upholstered seats. Obviously I wasnt going to stick with the leatherette!  I like a little design touch the blue brings.  

So. Wax.  remember I am embracing the Seepage - I did the unthinkable - I applied Dark Wax directly onto the paint.  The single coat or roughly applied paint.  Yes I did.  Now you can too.

Unwaxed but ready to go.

Unwaxed Ercol Chair

Dark Wax on Ercol Chair

The Dark Waxed Version

Blue at the front

Blue hints on Ercol

Find my blue bits.

Now I need to wax the full set and get them up for sale.

Until next time.

M x