Furniture Makeover Series #3 - Simply Vintageous....by Suzan

Good Morning Everyone - This is my last installment for furniture makeovers for the Inspiration Cafe - too bad - I was getting used to it LOL This makeover all started with a Craig's List find - and this was how it was advertised! Nothing like putting a little effort into your staging, is there?

John could not understand what I saw in this - but I saw Vintage French Provincial - I saw curved designs on the back of a chair - I saw a scallop edge on the table bottom - What I did NOT see was all the junk in the photo - I'm able to filter all of that out at this point - where that was ALL John could see - but isn't that an interesting array of items lol There's a phone - a colander - stacked cups - a goose necked lamp - a porcelain frying pan - a cutting board - a water bottle etc - I should save this, it could work well as a shower game - you have 30 seconds to look at it and list the items !!! John went to pick up the set - and I called him on his way back and asked him what it looked like Suzan says - Hi - did you get it? John says - Yup Suzan says - You don't sound very enthusiastic John says - Wait till you see it - I told you to come with me - Suzan says - I don't need to see all of it - I saw the photo - that was enough for....... John interrupts - IT'S GARBAGE - YOU SENT ME OUT TO PICK UP GARBAGE AGAIN Suzan says - I'll transform it John - you know that by now - John says - LISTEN, the minute I get in the house I'm taking a shower, do you understand me - you don't know where I've just been Suzan says - You're becoming a germaphobic I think John says - good-bye Suzan, I'm hanging up now - OK - what I also didn't see was this  ( and nor would I have thought it possible really ) and you will want to take a shower after looking at it lol

I didn't see the color of the filth on the wood either as a matter of fact but each chair took 3 buckets of soapy water before the water stayed clear - you can see that here if  you like photos of dirty water

So first order of the day was to remove that fabric and in some cases there were multiple layers of fabric - for the most part it practically disintegrated as I pulled - except where I needed it to - pliers were a neccesity here

then I cut out my new seat cushions - these had none at all - they were like sitting on wood chairs

Now here's an incredible tip supplied by JOHN himself - he's puffing like a penguin right now - You know when you're reupholstering seats sometimes it's hard to judge where the screw hole is, right? and if you try to screw in through the fabric - well, sometimes it works and sometimes it's a disaster, the fabric loops around the screws and fuggedaboudit - SO...................... I was explaining this to John - and he said - Well the solution is staring you right in the eyes - just keep the screws in while your stapling the fabric LIGHTBULB ANYONE????????????????

I removed them before I took this shot - ( STOOPID  ) but trust me when I tell you this is a powerful TIP. It's going to be such a breeze screwing the seats back in - ( unless all of you already do this - it honestly never dawned on me lol ) Oh and that piece of paper?  WHATEVER YOU DO DON'T REMOVE IT - there are chair police that go around imposing terrible fines for those of you that dare to do so

it used to be 50 to 500 dollars back in the day - I believe it's now at 75,000 dollars - and be careful who you try to sell your item to - if the potential buyer suddenly flips the chair over very quickly - chances are they're Chair Cops......................... and so finally I had one chair done

hmmm - lets rip that all off says the other Suzan ( don't know her? you can meet her here ) it doesn't go with the way I want to do the table now that I think of it perhaps this will look better

hmmm boring - 3rd time lucky?

Perfect for this set......................... Ok now I have an even more important tip for you - and this one's all mine Once you've painted the chairs - and cut the foam - and cut the fabric - and stapled it on - ( leaving the screws in place ) it's imperative that you stop and get yourself this

not 1 - not 2 - but 3 miniature cheese cakes smothered in chocolate - and a glass of milk ( just because it does the body good ) ...................................... John says - taking a picture of your dessert are you Suzan? Suzan says - yup - that I am John says - I suppose that fits in with the chair makeover post somehow? Suzan says - you got it mister - it's a tip actually John says - on what? how to gain weight while reupholstering? Suzan says - be careful John - be very very careful - your treading on dangerous ground now Ok - once you've finished you snack - and cut your eyes at your better half - it's time to get started on the table............................ I'm scared to show it to you - because this is really a love it or hate makeover SO PLEASE PLEASE BE KIND - BECAUSE JOHN SAID A VERY MEAN THING ABOUT MY DESSERT AND I'M FEELING KIND OF FRAGILE.........................and just because I'm nice I won't tell you what he can consume at one sitting - but it's quite astonishing really Oh wait - I'll show you the before again first - that way it can't help but look amazing! ( another tip for you diy bloggers )

and here's the curves I saw from the very beginning

the next photo is blurry because I couldn't get her to stop dancing - she was doing the can-can or some crazy french dance - I mean she was MOVING guys!
She has a " leaf " that I'm not finished yet - so can sit 6 to 8

The paint color is a creation of mine - Van Gogh paints allows each stocklister to create 4 designer colors, this is going to be one of mine - so can't divulge the secret recipe ladies lol
and I don't know if my camera does it justice because it's really beautiful
( if I do say so myself )

shhhh - did you hear something -
just now
a faint little voice?
isn't that sweet - look what she just whispered

(  Bienvenue ma cherie - Bienenue  )
Have a wonderful day !!!
Suzan
XOX 
and maybe just have 2 of those cakes - 3 will make you feel sick
And that's all she wrote everyone.................. Thanks so much to the ladies of this great blog for having me!!! A beintot! Hugs,

Furniture Makeover Series #2 - Simply Vintageous...by Suzan

Hi everyone!!! Simply Vintageous...by Suzan at your service again this week LOL SHE'S BACKKKKKKKKKK!!! Just when you thought it was safe to visit the Inspiration Cafe! Here I am with my second installment - and there's going to be a third one before you get rid of me LMHO!!! This is a long post - beware! A few weeks ago I received an email out of the blue from someone I had bought a piece of furniture from over a year ago - she had a table that she thought I might be interested in.

A little antique drop leaf table? Yes please! Can you remember when those flowers were the " rage " ? not sure what they were painted with but they were really difficult to sand off - and they HAD to be sanded off because they were raised - it was sort of like glue - came off in clumps and little balls all over the place but I finally got them sanded down and began the process of reinventing this little cutie pie. I decided I wanted to do a Herringbone pattern on this and here's how I did it Not sure how great a tutorial this is because I tend to not measure - I kind of eyeball things - sometimes it doesn't work out lol - but most of the time it does............. here we go I first gave it a couple of coats of pink paint - sorry the photo below is after only 1 coat and you can clearly see that it needs another one at this point................. The legs had already been painted white - so just needed one coat on them.  Already it's looking so clean and pretty.

Next I prepped the surface to make a herringbone pattern ( or you can call it Chevron - or you can call it Zig Zag ( remember that skit? well you can call me Ray or you can call me ............... ) First by putting 3 strips of painters tape down the length of the table - again - only eyeballing it!  You may choose to do the wise thing and measure - I kind of like things better when they're not " factory " looking perfect ( plus I'm just a little bit lazy - and far too impatient )

then I started on the angled stripes - the only thing that's important here is that you get the zig zags to " meet " at the peaks..............this is really as easy as it gets.

Once I finished that, I then went back and did another row in between each zig zag

Not necessary - it just depends how far apart you want your pattern to be. I then painted in between the tape with Annie Sloan Pure White.

You can make yourself a cup of tea at this point - NOT WINE - wine and zig zags are dangerous together

Is that a bubble in my tea? My mother swears that means money is coming your way................ A typical conversation with my Mother would go like this Mumsy says - Oh Susie - you're going to get money!!! Susie says  - Mom - you always say that - it's just bubbles in my tea Mumsy says  - well last week I had bubbles in my tea - and guess what - my pension cheque came in the next day  ( this is a TRUE conversation ) Susie says - But it ALWAYS comes in on the first of the month Mumsy says - well I'm just saying - it always happens - that's all Susie says - What are you going to do if you don't get bubbles in your tea next month - will your pension cheque not come? Mumsy says - Don't be ridiculous Susie says - I try not to be Mom, I try not to be........................... Ok you're not here for that lol This is how it looks with all the white finished on the top
.

I remove the tape as soon as I'm done - I never wait for the paint to dry because often it will remove some of the base color ( in this case the pink ) if it's been on too long - painters tape should always be removed when your paint is still tacky Should I mail this to you Danni - you could probably make something awesome with it for St Paddy's day!!!

and here's the result

I then decided I should have done the drop leafs too ( originally I was going to stencil something on them ) And here it is all done! I'm going to advertise this as multi functional So first up here it is as a changing table

Baskets or bins - or even a toy box can be stored underneath You can lift up the back drop leaf to keep things handy

and then when a changing table is no longer needed it can become a craft table / desk by lifting out the front drop leaf

opening up both leaves makes it a perfect " games " table as princess grows...........

and then when play time is finished - it quickly can go back to being a bedside table........... all folded up and out of the way

what a difference a little paint makes, right?

I'm thinking this one may sell - because there were bubbles in my TEA after all - and if not, well there goes Mumsy's theory all shot to hell! Thanks again Ladies for having me!!! It really is an honor............. See you all next week

Furniture Makeover Series #1 - Simply Vintageous....by Suzan

Good morning everyone!  My name is Suzan and I'm a paintaholic and I blog over at  Simply Vintageous....by Suzan. So far so good - here we go I was thrilled when Danni asked me to do a 3 part series on painting furniture. OKAY - thrilled and a little nervous.  Why is it that something you do constantly and effortlessly suddenly becomes terrifying when someone actually asks you to POST on another blog about it? My posts are normally filled with tongue in cheek ( isms ) until someone actually asks me to post something funny - and then I think about it and think about it and the best I seem to come up with is " why did the chicken cross the rode ".  So when Danni said she was hoping I would do something with furniture ( something I do constantly ) I panicked and thought - Oh No, not furniture, what in the world can I possible come up with? And I thought about it and thought about it but no ideas appeared on the table. EUREKA!!!! That's it! I'll do table transformations................... I've been wanting to paint my dining room table for ages and ages now - hubby is standing firm against it. 
Suzan says - I think I'm going to have to paint the dining room table now 
John says - You are NOT painting the dining room table - why do we have to constantly have this conversation? 
Suzan says - I'm guest posting for Danni at the Inspiration Cafe - and she wants me to do a furniture post - and I have no furniture left to paint................. 
John says - What? 
Suzan says - I'm guest po 
John says - I heard you - it just doesn't make sense 
Suzan says - I NEED TO PAINT SOMETHING John says - It's the last thing of wood left in this house - you're NOT painting it 
Suzan says - Fine - I'll find something else................. 
We have a butcher block in our teeny little kitchen - where we have a lot of our meals - a few months back I decided to give it a " face lift " and ended up with this - you can read about the conversation that ensued from that HERE

John did NOT like it - so I decided to give it another face lift ( only for him, poor guy, because it's not fair to have to live with something you don't like ) -  and anyway the ugly truth is that " finish " was not meant for heavy usage and it ended up looking like this (these are not the photos we furniture people usually show lol)

So after John went to bed ( trust me, it's easiest that way ) I gave it a quick coat of Annie Sloan Old White

Btw - he's going to kill me tomorrow morning - so if I'm not here next week to do the next segment you'll all know what happened - pls notify the police.........................this does not have to end up in the cold case files at all.
Next I went to the Graphics Fairy ( actually I have a file on my desktop where I save all my favorite graphics for easy access - otherwise you can spend as much time on that site as you do on Pinterest ) and chose this

in honor of the Inspiration Cafe - because the image is too small for this project I went over to Block Posters a fabulous site where you can resize your images to suit your needs - in this case I resized it to cover 4 pages. You can take it from one page

to 2 pages

and so on - please note the pixels get a little distorted if you go too large - so the larger you go - you will have to paint in the tiny gaps.

Cut the edges of your papers until your images align perfectly - and tape the pages together ( avoid taping where the actual image is ) Now there are many ways to transfer graphics onto furniture - Some people simple reverse it and rub with a pencil until the transfer comes off lightly - they then fill it in with paint. Some people use Modge Podge - I'm ashamed to say that I've never tried this method - though I keep saying I'm going to try it, I've just never attempted it yet............... For this project I used Graphite Paper - This is the " graphite " side - gray - I had to back track this step because I forgot to take photos NOTE TO SELF: when you're doing a tutorial on a subject, take photos of every step please This is the graphite side - this is the side that has to be face down on the surface you are working on

then you place your image on top of it and simply TRACE the image. ( the above image is what the graphite paper looks like when your finished ) when you remove everything you're left with a " pencilled " copy of the image you can use paint to fill everything in at this point - I always use a sharpie pen because my hand is not steady enough to paint within the lines.....................

I added quite a few more leaves - and the words LES - and AU LAIT - because at 53 I still haven't learned the concept that " less is more " Don't worry if it's not perfect at this point - y ou can fix all that when it comes time to fill it in here's what it looked like after coloring everything in

A light sanding to distress the image

Wonder what John will say? I know if I plunk down bacon and eggs tomorrow morning - it could say Cafe au Poo Poo and he'll be fine with it - just don't know if I can get up early enough to do that!!! This was so much fun ladies - I adore you all - and love your blogs - and am completely honored that you would even consider asking me to guest post!!! Now excuse me while I make a cup of tea -

and ponder what to come up with for next week's installment at the

much love