9-11 Never Forget

I will never forget where I was and what I was doing on 9-11-2001.

I'll never forget the horror and fear I felt when I realized that wasn't debris falling from the towers but people jumping.

I'll never forget the fear I felt when the plane hit the Pentagon on the Army side where my nephew was stationed.  That fear lasted until he was finally able to call us late that night to say he was okay.  Luckily he had been sent on an errand to the other side of the Pentagon, but he says he will never forget helping the injured and dying men and women he had worked with everyday.

We should never forget that we are not inviolable, but we should never live in fear because doing so will give the enemy the victory they hoped to achieve.

We are Americans! 
Our flag still flies and in God we still trust and this is still the land of the free and the home of the brave! They can not take that away from us!

My thoughts and prayers go out to all of those who lost family members or were in some way affected on that day.  
May God Bless and keep you.

Bulky But Feminine

Remember this chest of drawers in my blog "Chest Trouble"?

Well after that post I still felt it just needed something I wanted it to be more feminine. Yes, that big bulky chest feminine.  So I got a great idea and after digging around in my craft room found a great paper doily with some lovely floral lace cutouts around the edges.  I took that and cut out a portion of it to make a stencil.  I then applied the stencil with "Old White" ASCP onto the outside edge of the drawers on each side and this was the result.

Waves of lace!  With the lace pattern and the "Old White" painted drawer pulls I think I achieved a more delicate look for this very large and bulky piece of furniture.  Let me show you how I achieved this look using pictures I took while painting the matching dresser. 

•  First, I painted the piece with "Old White" chalk paint.  
• I then applied a gray wash with "Paris Gray" using 1 part paint and 5 parts water.
• After the paint had dried I applied my lace stencil taping it down to keep it from moving and using a medium stencil brush pounced the "Old White" paint into the lace pattern.
• I started with the top of the mirror and applied the stencil under the curve across the top of the mirror and then on each outside edge of every drawer.
• I painted all the drawer pulls and metal accents with "Old White" chalk paint, as they were not in great shape with some of the finish having worn off, applying two coats. I was surprised at how much I liked them painted white instead of black it softened the entire piece.

• After all the paint was dry I applied two coats of ASCP clear soft wax
• The top I stripped down to the wood and applied a Dark Walnut stain and two coats of a satin polyurethane.

Here are pictures of the finished dresser.

The dresser is so big I couldn't move it by myself and I had it in a smaller room when I took the pictures so I don't have a full picture of the dresser just parts of it, sorry. Also, my good camera is out of commission so please overlook the bad shots.

LOL yes those are my arms in the right corner.  We live in a 1950's home on a small lake. The home wasn't what I would have chosen but the location was excellent.  Notice the low acoustical ceilings.  Sigh, we work with what we are given.
 :-)   

I also dry brushed some Old White onto the decorative elements of the mirror to bring them out more.

I hope you like how these two pieces turned out.  They were quite a challenge in that they were such large pieces for the shabby chic look I wanted to achieve.  Next a dining room set and a piece that could serve as a dresser or sideboard.


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What A Shame

I'm really dragging this evening as I have been working since early this morning on a couple of projects, but I wanted to stop and take a minute to share the before and afters of a buffet/sideboard I just finished.


Here's the before:

I almost forgot to take the before picture because I was so eager to get started as usual. As you can see there isn't much wrong with this piece.  Its a very solid, quality piece of furniture.  The only problem I could find with it was some scarring on the very thick, mirror-like top and a couple of stains in the drawers. 


Now all of you wood and stain lovers don't have a fit but yes, I painted it.  But wait! As I was looking at the top I could see in places that beneath that about an inch of polyurethane finish was what looked like beautiful inlay work!  


So I sanded and I sanded and I sanded...good thing I love to sand huh? And finally Viola! Behold!

Beautiful huh? I just can't imagine what that carpenter was thinking when he added all that stain and poly to his beautiful work. Geez! I just applied wood conditioner then three coats of clear soft wax and buffed. I also added the black line details around the edges.

I painted the rest of the buffet with ASCP in "Old White".  The brass drawer pulls I spray painted with a textured black matte paint. Since it was so pretty inside (looks almost new) I did not paint the interior nor did I distress it but I did line the drawers.


By the way, these are pics of just some of my new booth at King's Antique Mall. I just moved across the aisle to a little larger booth with a display case as I picked up some really nice glass items to sell. If you live in the Shreveport, LA area stop in and ask for Peggy's booth. Well, I'm hitting the sack for some much needed rest. Have a great long weekend. :-)

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