Nautical Chest

We had been in our house for less than a week when our friends across the street had a garage sale. They know how I am about furniture and so they let me come early and have first pick! I walked away with two pieces of course. One of which was a beautiful chest of drawers. Early American style and solid cherry. In a word: GORGEOUS!!!

It's gorgeous the way it is for sure, but I needed the stain a little darker and there was no way I was going to strip that much cherry wood. Cherry kind of gives me fits...

So I stripped the top.

Tried staining the top with dark walnut and got nowhere!

So I tried again with kona and finally achieved the color I wanted and consistency in the finish.

Just beautiful!

Then I had to finish painting this sucker. It is NOT light weight and we've been so busy around here that my husband hasn't been able to help me move things lately. I've become quite creative with moving techniques and developed some decent muscles lately ;)

Sometimes things are just meant to be. I really didn't want to put the wooden knobs back on, but funds were low after the move and all the incidents that have happened. I went digging in my hardware drawer. You see, I can't throw things away when it comes to design stuff. Lots of people want their hardware replaced when I work on their furniture and they tell me to toss the old hardware...I can't do that. So I have a little cart and it has a nickel and chrome drawer, a brass (both shiny and antiqued)

a wooden drawer, and an odds and ends drawer consisting mostly of hinges, door stops, and other such supplies.

 I found these and there were exactly eight!

So I polished for a bit and they shone a little but it wasn't really what  I was looking for. So I whipped out my handy-dandy little gold leaf pen and went to town. I love them! I love them so much that these went from being the temporary knobs to the way this piece will be forever!

So far I haven't been able to do much work on the master bedroom here. The nightstands are almost finished and this chest is in place, but otherwise this room has a long way to go!

Ahhhh, but that chest. It's so pretty and just what I wanted and it makes me feel like this room isn't so far from being complete anymore.

Then I stop and remember the list: chairs to be painted and reupholstered, cabinets to be painted, walls to be painted, bed to build, window treatments to make, ceiling to plank, new carpet to install (because my husband wants carpet in our master and I'm a nice wife), and a master bath to renovate.

That's just one room out of many...but it's so fun :)

Jessica's Burlap Ruffles

Leslee's ruffle drapes were a hit! I've gotten so many requests for ruffle drapes now it's insane! But just as I was finishing up Leslee's gorgeous drapes I had another client want some ruffles of a different kind. 

I had done some pillows for Jessica just after our move and I had also painted these pieces for her as well. She bought ready made drapes and just wanted me to embellish them with some burlap ruffles. As a side note: if you try these out you will have burlap absolutely everywhere. EVERYWHERE! But, they were so worth it!

Because of crazy summer schedules (and some over-booking on my part) I wasn't able to go and photograph these beauties myself. Jessica kindly sent me some quick pictures so that I would be able to show all of you how they look while hanging.

I'm even considering some ruffle drapes for my own house somewhere...maybe the formal dining room?

We shall see!

Leslee's Dining Room

I'm really excited about this reveal. This is a room reveal. It started out as a dining set redo. An old antique Duncan Phyfe set that needed a little TLC with some paint and upholstering. 

Then it turned into  the dining set redo and some really fabulous drapes. 

Finally it was a dining set redo, some really fabulous drapes, and an eye-catching light fixture.

What we ended up with is just so beautiful, fun, and casually elegant...pretty much like the client herself really!

Honestly, I could not be more jealous of her drapes! I know I made them, but WOW! They're just so fun and cute - I want some ;)

She already had such sweet vignettes all over this space. The turquoise on this little flower-filled boot is the inspiration for the color I used on the light fixture.

I used her old drapery fabric to upholster the seats of the chairs. It was a pretty heavy fabric and will be great for this, plus now you have the darkness and heavy pattern where you want it to be in a dining room.

The feet on this table are to die for. I have always loved the attention to detail that a Duncan Phyfe set has.

The light fixture was all on me. She didn't actually like the light fixture as it was and was asking what I thought should go there. You see, before it was a bronze color and had alabaster globes surrounding the lights. I pulled it apart, painted it, distressed it, and re-wired it putting in candelabra sockets: Lantern style light fixture that perfectly suited her style and space...not to mention saved her tons of money. Lantern fixtures are pretty pricey!

I swoon every time I see these drapes!

Another happy client and a beautiful space to share with all of you. This was a very fun project and it was so awesome to meet this amazing woman!

Striped Dining Table

A few of you may remember back when I did this post about a great estate sale find I was going to make over and sell.

Then this post that followed up on it, in which I said that one day when I had a house big enough for both a breakfast table and a formal dining table I would be using both.

We have a house large enough for that now and as much as I love this striped table - wait for it - I'm selling it!

You see, I'm a sentimental type girl. I love things that are handed down like my grandparents table that is now being used again, this time in our breakfast nook. While the striped table is gorgeous, my mother-in-law is giving me the dining table that my husband grew up with. I just can't resist the lure of that. I love that and my daughter is becoming very sentimental toward things like that as well and I can just picture her, years down the road, wanting that table that her daddy grew up with in her dining room.

large - both leaves

Medium - one leaf

Small

In the new house

So for now, if you're interested in the striped dining table, leave a comment, send me an email, or head on over to Peacock Door Designs facebook page and let me know.

Main Bath Preview

When we moved in to this house there were few things I hated more than the main house bath. It's dated, has insane wallpaper, and carpet (EWWWWWWW)!

It's a gem huh? Crazy vine paper that elevates my heart rate as soon as I walk into the room, speckled white tile, gold trim, gold cabinets, and again with the carpet...

So one night I was trying to relax and take a bath and I couldn't at all. I was staring up at this wall and I swear I broke out in stress hives.

So I got busy! I pulled off that nasty gold trim.

Picked a paint color for the cabinetry (isn't the gold lovely?) It's going to be a creamy white.

 Then decided to use the primer I had on hand to try and paint over the wallpaper.

I know what you're thinking, "Why paint over it instead of remove it?"

I have a couple of reasons:

First, this room will be completely gutted and reworked in a few years and all of the sheetrock will be replaced at that time.

Second, this is my quick fix for this bathroom. I do not want to spend tons of time trying to take a dog's breakfast and make it a gourmet meal.

Unfortunately the primer I had on hand was water based...

After 2 coats of primer the vines were still going strong. So off to the store I go again to get some oil-based primer to cover the crazy vines. Here's hoping that the gold cabinets are easier to paint over! 

I have quite a bit of client work in the next few weeks so I may not have anything more to show you on this project for a while. Stay tuned though! Lot's of fun things are coming up soon!!!

French Doors

We've had a few setbacks since we moved to this house. The plumbing, the tree, something stolen from my husband, and then to top it all off...broken sliding patio doors.

When we moved in we knew we didn't like the sliding doors but they functioned and it was something a bit further down on our list of priorities. Eventually I knew I wanted to replace them with lovely wood out-swing french doors that would match the wood windows in this house. But I was NOT wanting to replace them anytime soon. 

This is what the sliding doors looked like while we were moving in

You can see the super dated curtains and valance on the brass trimmed doors here. So I got busy and pulled those drapes off and the valance down only to discover...a weird random fluorescent light bar had been hidden by the valance. I know the picture below is dark but you can see the light bar above the doors in it.

I was already busy painting paneling and trying to prep the walls for their new lovely shade. Then one afternoon, right before my husband was to leave for the fire station (that's always when stuff happens), we heard the kids playing and then a loud crash followed by the sound of breaking glass.

NOT my favorite sound people!

We rushed to the family room only to find the door completely shattered. Turns out my son had locked my daughter in the backyard and she was a wee bit unhappy about that situation and began throwing herself at the door. She was barefoot and when she swung her tiny little hips into the doors that last time, it shattered inward. God was watching over our little nugget because I still don't know how she kept from falling through the doors and didn't get a single cut on her. Not even her feet! 

The husband was beyond furious, but did a patch job before he had to leave for work. I thought it looked like a nightmare spider of some sort. I was also nervous that the dogs would lean against it and we would have more glass and then injured dogs - but we lucked out there too!

In order to feed the dogs or let them in or the children out we had to start using the other side of the sliding doors. That side didn't work so well. It came off the track multiple times and was very difficult to move at all. 

I priced the wood doors and they were really too expensive for now so we compromised and bought in-stock steel doors from Lowes. It gave us the look and saved us about $2300 for the time being. Eventually those gorgeous wood out-swing doors will be there, just not right now.

Our Great Dane Slate found it really fun to annoy my husband while he was installing the new doors :)

There is still a lot of work to be done. Trim needs to be installed, sheetrock needs to be patched, and I need to paint the paneling to the east of the doors again - we accidentally broke one of the panels when we removed them to install the doors and I had to grab one from the stack I had taken down for the chalkboard wall in the breakfast nook. It's all coming together though, and I have to say that for cheap steel doors I really love the look.

The children are currently doing a long chore list for money equivalent to "pay" us for the doors - and maybe (hopefully) learn a lesson in there as well!