More Sunshine!

I got to do a fun little project for a reader this week. Kara asked me to re-create my “You are my Sunshine” canvas for her little girls (you can see the original ones here and here). The previous two projects were made using a recycled canvas, and this one was made with a new canvas…may I just say that new canvas is SO much easier to work with??

Here it is displayed on the Gradient Dresser:

Hope your day is filled with sunshine!

I will make custom canvases! Click on the Available Items tab up top for more information.

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Linking up here!

Gradient Dresser

There’s a trickle-down effect in blogland….and I’m the latest drip!

Cassie at Primitive and Proper showed this gorgeous dresser just about a week ago.

She was inspired by this dresser from Norske Interior (via Brooklyn Limestone):

And I….was utterly smitten.

I came across this dresser at Deseret Industries last week, and I wanted it. I knew it would be perfect for a similar treatment!

Unfortunately, it was priced out of my budget, so I waited patiently for a week (visiting it often, of course)…

… until I could ask them to mark the price down! It happily came home with me Tuesday, and I couldn’t wait to get to work on it. (You can tell because it’s now…Thursday.)

It turned out just like the picture in my head!

I painted the body of the dresser in a barely off-white paint I had on hand (Behr Ultra color-matched to Sherwin Williams Creamy), and I had fun choosing three colors for the three rows of drawers.

I bought a sample of Behr Ultra in each of these colors: Windwood Spring (top), Shallow Sea (middle), and Lagoon (bottom).

My teenage daughter graciously offered to help carry it up to her bedroom.

Too bad! She already has furniture. (I’m a mean mom.)

So there you have it…my version of the Gradient Dresser!

I do love these retro dressers. Two of my other favorites are Reverse Anthropologie and 38 Flowers !

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This project has been featured at Saved by Suzy, Day and Age Design, Mod Vintage Life, My Repurposed Life, and AtticMag.

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Linking up here and !

Words to live by

Another cupboard door sign for you…

How about you??

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This project was featured at the Idea Cupboard and Domestically Speaking.

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Linking up here.

Black Coffee

Can you stand another French typography coffee table makeover? I hope so, because I’m not tired of them yet! I call this one “Black Coffee!”
Here’s how it started out. It was a good Basset coffee table, with two drawers. I loved the plank-style wood top.

I chose to only sand the center section of the top down to bare wood. The plan was to paint the base and the “frame” of the top. Then I chose my graphic and got painting! You can see that I didn’t worry about bits and pieces of the old stain being left behind. I think it adds to the character of the finished piece.

French ad from The Graphics Fairy.

After the lettering was painted and distressed, I stained the top with Minwax Antique Walnut, and painted the rest of the coffee table black (get it??), using Behr Ultra paint.

I kept the original hardware, including the decorative metal scrolls in the corners.

I like how the top looks like it was framed!

And of course I had to play with a couple of accessories…



So there you have it! If you want more information on how I create my tables, be sure to check out the French Chocolate table, Café table, French Twist, and the Postcard table!

This project has been featured at West Furniture Revival, Addicted 2 Decorating, and Perfectly Imperfect.

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Linking up here!

Late to my own party!

So here’s the deal.

Sometime within the last few weeks, I thought to myself, “Hey, I think it’s been a year since I started blogging!” I checked my handy-dandy blog dashboard, and sure enough, I started in July 2010. And I could swear that the first post was on July 25, so I decided that would be the day to start a giveaway. Well, guess what. Apparently I have been wordier than I thought, and there was another, older page of old posts! Huh. Apparently my “blogiversary” was on July 14! But…better late than never, right?

I browsed though my “project” folders on my computer, and I’d thought I’d share a few of my favorites…most from before the days before I knew anything about picture editing or staging (and I still don’t know a lot)!

This may be the project that started it all. I wanted a wall unit for my front room, and this is the result. I have a nearly uncontrollable urge to re-paint them in a creamy white now…

A pink chandelier for my daughter’s bedroom…

Learning to use my secondhand Cricut (I’m a Silhouette girl now)!

A polka-dot headboard…

Learning that spray paint comes in such fun colors!

A bench makeover before I learned how to re-cane furniture…

I wanted to keep this library table so bad. My husband wanted to keep his IKEA desk. What’s up with that??

Recycling an old canvas…

Still in love with these schoolhouse chairs!

I’m a sucker for red (and more numbers)…

I love numbers on pretty much anything!

And not just numbers…I just love typography, as demonstrated by my French chocolate coffee table (my most popular project ever)!

Hope you enjoyed your trip down memory lane with me!

Most importantly, I want to say

to all of you who have taken the time to make kind comments, give advice, encouragement, and support. I love the “blog world,” and I’m happy I joined up!

Now, for the giveaway!

The winner will receive a beadboard sign of his/her choice!

If you have a particular saying, color, size, etc…I can work with that.

Here are a few ideas to get you going, but I’m open to all sorts of possibilities!

Here are a few ways to enter the giveaway. Please leave a comment for each one you choose to do!

1. Please be a follower of Red Hen Home (mandatory).
2. “Like” Red Hen Home on Facebook.
3. Mention this giveaway on your blog or Facebook page (please link back).
4. Leave a comment telling me one good thing that happened to you or for you today!

My dear friends, I am not going to even attempt to answer comments left for this particular post. Rest assured I will read and enjoy every one, however!

Good luck!

Random winner will be selected on Monday, August 1.

Can’t stop the classics!

I very much enjoy playing with fun colors, typography, stencils, and all the rest. But there is a look I keep coming back to—that of a warm wood top paired with a creamy glazed base. I love it for dining tables (like this and this), end tables, and I love it for cedar chests!

My sweet sister wanted a piece of furniture for the end of her bed. We discussed a bench, but finally settled on a cedar chest so she would have someplace to store her stacks of fabric (she’s an amazing seamstress). She found this chest through the on-line classified ads for only $30, and I picked it up for her:

It’s a good Lane-brand chest, and it even still has the key! The top is all cedar-lined, and the bottom has a drawer. She pretty much gave me carte-blanche to fix it as I liked, but I knew she liked the wood top/painted base combination.

So here’s what she got to take home!

The top is stained with Minwax Antique Walnut stain. I was at the very end of the can—and I found that it gets very thick at the bottom if you aren’t good about stirring it before each use (obviously I didn’t!). It actually gave a new and different effect to the top of the chest. In some places, the stain went on almost like paint, and could be sanded off to leave interesting lighter streaks. I kind of liked it!

I chose to change the hardware on this piece (I found the new pulls at Hobby Lobby), which involved filling all the old holes and drilling new ones. (I swear, sometimes that process takes as much time as the painting does!)

I like how the fluted shape of the knobs echoes the shape of the fan.

The base, by the way, is painted in Behr Ultra paint. I had them color-match Sherwin Williams “Creamy” paint.

I don’t have any “before” pictures of this next chest, but I thought I’d toss the “afters” in here for comparison’s sake!

As you can see, this chest is very similar (it also has a bottom drawer), and it received almost the identical treatment.

The knobs and pulls were interesting on this piece. They were a Southwestern style, had a very brassy finish, down to a faux green tarnish in the details. What is a Southwestern style knob, you ask?

Well, imagine a knob that has a stylized fish carved into it! It was not my favorite look, even after painting it all with Krylon’s oil-rubbed bronze spray paint. I replaced all the knobs with plain round knob from my stash. (I kept the pulls. They have some angular carvings on the ends, but I could live with them.)

I adore cedar chests!

Here are the two side by side:

Which one do you like better? Why?

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This project has been featured at West Furniture Revival.

Linking up here!

Beadboard signs

It’s no secret that I love typography! Before I started painting on tables, I painted words of all kinds on recycled cupboard doors, old canvas, and scraps of baseboard (you can see these here, here, here, and here). After seeing Miss Mustard Seed’s MARKET sign, I was inspired to cut up a piece of beadboard I had left over from a project last summer.

I didn’t do any measuring…just cut off some pieces that looked good to me. I used my Silhouette to design the wording. Since vinyl is expensive, I cut the lettering out of cardstock and used spray adhesive to temporarily fix the letters to the beadboard.

Note: it helps to lay out the letters on your board before your spray them, and make little pencil marks to remind you where to place them after they are all sticky!

This is what it looks like with the cardstock letters on the beadboard, before I paint over them:

All of the beadboard was base-coated in white before I played with the letters.

The “Market” sign was my first and favorite! I used some leftover paint from a Behr Ultra sample pot to paint over the board. Yes, you get some more bleeding under the letters, but for a sign that will be glazed and distressed anyway, it really doesn’t matter! You also don’t get perfect coverage…but that’s part of the charm.

I used a small brush and black acrylic paint to “shadow” the letters. I love the depth it gives. Then I sand everything down well, and glaze it with brown stain mixed with a glazing medium, concentrating on the grooves.

I did a couple of French signs. “Boulangerie” is “bread shop,” and “Patisserie” is “pastry shop.” Surely two of the best places in the world to be!

The “Groceries” sign is the same color as the “Market” sign. Do you like the antique wooden shoe form sitting in front? I got it from I’m So Vintage’s etsy shop!

I love red. This one would have been great in my kitchen. I grew up on homemade bread, and my family goes through at least 6 loaves every week!

The “Eggs” sign was inspired by Full Circle Creations.

I didn’t distress or glaze the “Lemonande” sign. It was so clean and bright as it was…perfect for summer!

Which sign is your favorite? Or do you have another idea for a sign? Be thinking about it, because JULY 25 is my one-year BLOGIVERSARY! There will be a giveaway beginning that day, and one of the prizes will be a sign of the winner’s choice!

What would you want yours to say??

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Linking up to these great parties and Saved by Suzy.