What I've Been Up To

Hey! Remember me? Its been awhile since I have posted but I have been a busy bee!

I made another human.

We gutted our kitchen. (Sadly no complete"after shot" yet)

And of course there's the furniture! This was a custom piece for my husband's co-worker. 

Before: Electric Teal and cheap looking

After:  A manly man's chest of drawers

If you like what you see come visit me on Facebook! I'm slightly more active over there.

Good news, Bad news

The good news is that I have A LOT of furniture finished and available for sale. 

The bad news is that the first opportunity I had to sell in public was a total BUST!

A local child care center put on a tag sale to benefit the center and I decided to pay for a space for the sale last Saturday. I wasn't sure that it was the right place to sell furniture. I thought it would attract bargain shoppers. But one of the organizers and I agreed that it was worth a shot. I was wrong about the bargain shoppers. The sale didn't attract anyone. So all the great pieces I rushed to finish are now in a storage unit, and available for sale. 

And now the pics...

My men were amazingly helpful, my peanut made sure I had my paint samples.

Everything pictured above is available. For prices and more detailed pictures you can email me, or visit my Facebook page here... http://www.facebook.com/SeaShellsFurniture.

 

Anyway You Want It

I've been lucky lately to be kept very busy with custom furniture pieces. They are fun for me to paint because it forces me to break out of my usual style. Each custom piece of furniture I've painted has been something that I would never have thought of on my own, but loved when I saw the finished product.

My latest was this this set of antique dressers. They are finished in Granite Boulder by Behr and have glass knobs. 

This adorable green cutie is finished in Fresh Meadow by Valspar and has white ceramic knobs.

Yes, I paint a lot of  dressers.... This one was for a newborn baby girl's room and is stained Rustoleum's American Walnut. The top is painted Heavy Cream by Olympic. The knobs are brushed nickel and kind of old fashioned looking. 

I'm currently working on one more custom dresser. This one will be bare wood with purple glass knobs. I love that each one is so different and not at all what I would have chosen.  And since I don't always paint dressers here is one more...

This headboard was done for my mom who specifically wanted a pine cone headboard. I walked into my favorite used furniture store one day and it was there waiting for me for only $25! It was meant to be. Mom's request was "IKEA white" so this is finished in Glidden's Parchment White. 

So that's what you get when you design the piece and I do all the work... whatever you want. I enjoy working with each customer to give them exactly what will work in their space. Custom work is keeping me pretty busy at the moment, which is such a blessing, but I'm excited to use some ideas of my own soon.

On another subject I have a question for anyone who happens to read this... a new furniture consignment store has opened very close to my home and I talked to the owner today about selling my furniture through them. She seemed interested in refinished pieces and it seems like things sell quickly. So my choices are to sell pieces quickly through a consignment store and give half the selling price to the store owner or sell on my own at a much slower rate and keep my entire earnings. What would you do? Have you used a consignment store before? I'd love some feedback on this one. 

Adventures in Chalk Paint

I got to try something new on my latest piece of furniture... chalk paint. Someone asked me to describe chalk paint and I couldn't. Think of chalk dust mixed with paint, I guess. I've seen lots of furniture painted with it all over the Pinterest and wanted to try it for myself. Buying it is expensive, so I made my own. 1 cup of flat latex paint, and 1 Tbsp. unsanded grout. That's it. Easy peasy.

 It comes out really thick and kind of gloppy.

Here is the bench I was painting.

It went on really unevenly at first. I used a foam brush- I thought it would be easiest on all the spindles.

I switched to a roller and it went on thicker and more even.  Those spindles were the devil! They took for ever to paint- I wanted them to be painted evenly even though I'd be sanding it off eventually. 

So here is the finished bench!

So... would I use chalk paint again? No. Not the homemade stuff anyway. It wasn't different enough from regular flat paint. I'd read it was supposed to distress easily, but it wasn't any easier than other paint. Maybe someday I will suck it up and spend the extra money on real chalk paint. But, I am happy with the bench. It looks exactly how I wanted it to. 

One more time... before...

...and after!

If you are interested in purchasing this adorable little bench, let me know! Christinaann80@yahoo.com

You can also check me out on Facebook! http://www.facebook.com/SeaShellsFurniture

Big Blue Beauty

This is my favorite piece ever! I'm sure I'll say that many more times as I continue painting furniture... but so far this is my favorite! I've been wanting to try something new. So, I picked up this package of stencils from Micheal's...

It sat around for a while until I found just the right project for it...

I've never stenciled before and in this case it was time consuming! The top of this dresser is big and my stencil was pretty small. I could only paint about a 6x6 section at a time then had to wait for it to dry before moving on...

It didn't always come out perfect. Here you can see I didn't line everything up well and overlapped some of the design. I wasn't too worried about that happening though, since I knew I'd be distressing the whole thing anyway...

It took 2 days , but I finally finished...

And here is the finished dresser...

Before...

After...

If this you and this dresser are MFEO (Made For Each Other), you can contact me at ChristinaAnn80@yahoo.com

Claim it Before I Paint it!


I've been picking up new pieces of furniture this week, and I'm offering them to you before I touch them. If you see something you like and have ideas about how it should be finished, just let me know...

Long low dresser, 6 drawers.

Smaller dresser, in my opinion this is a great height for a baby changing table.

Console table, with 2 glass inserts.

Detail shot of console table. I'd like to finally try glazing on this piece to bring our the beautiful carved detail.

I also have 2 finished pieces available...

I just finished this simple end table. Painted in cream, and sea green, distressed, and finished with wax for durability and shine. $75.

Distressing detail.

Top detail.

Antique farm table. $90.

It's been a successful day here in my little living room based furniture shop. I was able to sell 2 dressers today- making room for new items! One was a dresser I picked up off Craigslist and refinished according to my vision. The other one I picked up a used furniture shop and custom finished for a customer. (I have customers!!! Holy moly!)

This farm table is still available for $100.

If you are interested in the farm table or are in need of custom work, feel free to contact me!
christinaann80@yahoo.com