FADE FROM BLACK TO WHITE

Maybe the title of this post should be "Fade From Dark Brown to White", but...you get the idea.

I got this little tobacco chest a few year's back from a neighbor's garage sale for $10!  The neighbor told me this was a family piece, from her husband's side of the family, hence, she had no problem getting rid of it!  I really did try to talk her out of selling it to me at this point, but she wanted it out. of. the. house!  I was happy to carry it across the street to my place.  It had cigarette burns on the top, but to me, it was just part of the history of the piece.  Here it is before paint...

Cute, huh?  I know, you probably can't believe I wanted to paint it, but...I had this new clay paint by Cece Caldwell (not compensated in any way, darn it) and was just itching to put it on a few things, so...

Here's a shot of the inside.  I didn't realize it was lined in some sort of breakable material until I moved it one day.  I had stored something heavy inside and decided to move the chest without unloading it.  BIG MISTAKE!   It broke this front panel.  I was a little sick when it happened and left the broken piece inside until now.  Today I took a hammer (yes, I did) and broke out the rest of the panel and painted the inside of the door--paint covers a lot of mistakes things we don't want to see anymore.

I turned the little piece upside-down to paint its underpinnings and found this little brass plaque.  At this point I thought maybe I had really depreciated a pricey heirloom!  Investigation proved that I hadn't and I could breathe again!  

Here she is in place and I love her even more now!  She will get a coat of wax when the paint is fully cured, but doesn't she look great in her new paint?  Those little legs were tricky to paint and now I know I DO NOT WANT TO PAINT MY STAIR SPINDLES like I thought I did.

Thanks for reading...

Robin

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Timewashed

A Tale of Two Lamps

Come and listen to a tale and decide....what choice would you have made?

The story begins a year or two ago at a garage sale.  I bought two matching lamps (minus the shades) for $15.  One had need of a minor repair, but very good bones...Pottery Barn bones, if you know what I mean.  Here's the way the lamps came to me (minus the shades)

Are you noticing the Pottery Barn"ness"?  I had seen a similar lamp in the PB catalogue but it was painted white and distressed--an easy fix that I had always intended from the moment I saw them.   BUT, a good friend, who advice I admire, thought they were gorgeous the way they were and urged me NOT to paint them.   What to do????  So they sat unpainted until I couldn't stand it any more and took them out in the yard and sprayed them!

A closeup of the distressing on lamp #1

A closeup of lamp #2.  Each lamp dictated how it would be distressed.

I love them so much more now!  I liked them before, but I have so much stained wood in my house that I'd love to paint, it is only a matter of time before I paint any unattached piece of wood that I encounter!  I've got the bug to paint and I love white, ivory, antique white, etc...

Here's some of the inspiration

Here are the lamps final resting places in our house...

That concludes this tale of two lamps.  What do you think?  Are you a stained wood is beautiful sort-of-person, or paint and distress sort-of-person?  There was a third option I played around in my head with--strip them and leave them unfinished in a Restoration Hardware sort of way.  You can see what my choice was.

As always, thanks for reading...

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