Vintage Barbola mirror restored!

 Thanks to Maggie for her suggestion of replacing the convex glass on this boot sale find with another vintage mirror! I did just that with a skanky mirror from a car boot sale for £1 and it looks great!

I've just returned home from Yorkshire and I need to get cracking on the vintage thirties dressing table! But it's sooo hot! It wasn't like this oop north!
 I'm delighted to be linking up to the awesome Faith Hope and Charity Shoppings tah dah tuesday! (and even more delighted I figured out how to do it!)

http://faithhopeandcharityshopping.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/ta-dah-tuesday-minute-make-map-letter.html

Sunday booty

 Well, the mother of all boot sales did not disappoint. In fact I managed two. The first is held in a farmers field in a village outside York and on a day like today with a bit of sunshine it's humongous!
Then on to the next at the York livestock centre. I think this one is my favourite because they often hold auctions there from house clearances so you get some interesting furniture and a bit more vintage stuff.
Amongst other things I got this sweet chapel chair made from oak. I love the way the oak has turned grey but it has a touch of worm and a missing oak peg so I think I might end up painting it. Paint hides a multitude of sins!

Next up was this old printers tray which has a bit of age to it. I love that it has the makers name printed on it. No idea what I'm going to do with it yet but I like it. I also found some vintage clothing for next to nothing and some Disney Princess tat for my daughter (like we needed more!) I hope your weekends boot sales were equally fruitful!

Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside...

 Just come back from a few days in Whitby on the Yorkshire coast. Ten of my family shared this fabulous Victorian house with five bedrooms and five storeys. We took our kids out of school a few days before the end of term.

It was a bit 'Downton Abbey' with servants bells in the rooms! No servants sadly.

 Bringing in the catch.

We even saw some sun!

Cute little cottages.

 And we had the beach to ourselves!





And with any luck, the mother of all car boot sales tommorrow in York!

Milk paint TV cabinet reveal

 So here's the finished cabinet in all its milk painty glory.
(Except for the feet which haven't yet been waxed).

Top tip: Don't spend your evenings dark waxing furniture in dimly lit rooms! You will think it all looks great. Then you'll come downstairs the next day and see it in daylight and realise you now need to spend time lifting all the dark wax with clear!

But you probably knew that right?

 I stripped the top and stained it a more fashionable walnut and finished it with oil. It was mahogany before.

 The cracking is more random than I'd like. I'm into symmetry and balance. This is not that. Can't think why this particular section went cracky. All I can think is that I laid the paint on thicker here?

 The inside of the doors went totally random!

I will be using this paint again! I didn't sand this piece at all before painting, and you can see how shiny it was. I'm very impressed with the paints adhesion. I didn't use bonding agent (pva) either.

And those cats are still up to no good...

Sneaky peak at the tv cabinet in milk paint

I thoroughly regretted having used up the remainder of my milk paint on this piece. All the way through I hated it and even wanted to paint over it in emulsion (latex in american) even though it would have meant that the milk paint was a mere primer albeit an expensive one imported from Canada. It was dreadful to use. My first 2 cups turned to porridge. (I think the water was too warm!) I swore never again would I use it. I never got the opaque coverage I wanted. Then I ran out of the damn stuff and could do no more.
I distressed. I waxed.

And I fell a little bit in love...

It's OTT for sure. But it appeals to the frustrated set designer in me. So here's a sneaky peak in bad sunday evening artificial light. Until I can finish waxing and show you the whole thing!

Pantry makeover and LOTS of painting!

Busy weekend celebrating mine and my daughters birthdays so sadly no car boot sales for me. The weather was appalling though so apparently there wasn't much to miss.

Sooo, I thought I'd share with you the sheer horror of my pantry as it was! No amount of baskets were prettying this up! Like the rest of the house, it was decorated 40 years ago, and the shelves were imaginatively constructed from a dismembered wardrobe.
Seeking cornflakes in here is not a good start to anyones day. 

  Did you know that IKEA now do online shopping? I had been lusting after some solid wood TROFAST units for quite some time, but in my state of car-lessness I had no way to get them. Until one day, they suddenly started online shopping and I almost melted my credit card in a frenzy of excitement.
I had already worked out what would fit by actually building paper templates of the units! The pantry has a sloping ceiling as it goes under the stairs and the back wall has a huge bulge in it to accommodate the downstairs loo but I figured it would be easier to assemble my units and then chop portions off them to make them fit, rather than build some from scratch.
So here are the off cuts.

 And here's the finished result. Cleaner, fresher, and easier to see what I have. I had about nine thingys of salt in there!

I painted it all in white water based eggshell so it will stay white despite the lack of daylight in there. Oil based would discolour really fast. I also used a special primer to stop the knots seeping and allow water based paint over it. It was Blackfriars problem solving primer. Great product!
You can get these Trofast units in white but they are the particle board ones and I wanted the strength of the solid pine.

 I made this peg bag to match the oil cloth shevles. (The oil cloth shelves may not be staying. I think it might be better just all white...)

   I'd always wanted one of these and I was lucky enough to find one at a car boot sale for 50p. It's a vintage iron holder.

 My pink broom is happy in her new home. See how the shelves fit under the stairs?

 I also made a new bag tidy with some linen and applique letters. Why not?

 And this is what I'm working on now. It's a tv cabinet, the drawers on the front are fake and two doors open up. I love the shape.

I am going round 2 with milk paint on this one and I'm losing the fight.
I really do not like milk paint. But I had a lot left over...

 Lovely shape! I've refinished the top. I'll show you when it's done.

And this is a little 1930's Lebus dressing table that is also having a makeover.
As you can see, it's in a bad way and is needing a lot of TLC.
I've given up stripping outside and have taken over the dining room. Er, and half the living room. 






I'm crossing my fingers for a dry sunday morning so I can get my boot sale fix for the week. 

Sewing and thinking...

 I've just completed this special commission for a lovely lady called Jennie who runs a 'Bed and Breakfast' up near Stratford upon Avon. Here's the link to her business. It looks amazing. If I'm ever up that way I'd love to go and stay! Check out that bathroom!

http://www.firscottage.co.uk/





 

I've been giving my mannequin a lot of thought. Have you seen the site, www.corsetlacedmannequins.co.uk/ ?

 That is the look I'm thinking of going for. Except nowhere near as good. But good enough for me. So you see, I can't be rushed. I need to create a pattern from scratch.
The stand got a bit of gluing today and perhaps I can get the spray paint out tommorrow.

Now, I'd better pack up that cushion before the cats get to it!

Sunday booty (better late than never!)

 I'm late with my post but the weekends boot sale was pretty good. This is a vintage barbola mirror that I paid £2 for. It has convex glass that has been broken and then someone glued another piece of convex glass over the top but it's smaller and it's also dropped off.
It's a large wall hanging mirror.

 So I think I'll replace all the glass with flat bevelled glass as it probably costs a fortune to get convex glass made. If you still can!

Here I am, trying not to get in the shot as I haven't brushed my hair yet. Don't you hate photographing mirrors?











          Found this painting. I have  no idea if it's oil or acrylic but it has some age to it and I'm hoping it's an old master!
It's probably painting by numbers...
I like the colours though and it's signed.  And I don't think you can go too wrong with original art for a fiver.

Anyway, enough procrastination, time to get on with some housework. Sadly.