Buying Milk Paint: Along the Way

Hello readers!

Continuing with my previous post, I did go to pick up my Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint on Wednesday. It is sold at SuzAnna's, the larger shop at Vintage Village, which consists of several booths run by different vendors. This shop is the furthest away from the parking lot, so "along the way" I couldn't resist taking these photos.

Two Old Birds,

a great shop where I buy...

...all of my Annie Sloan Chalk Paint...

always has cute little things out in front...

and a black bird on the fence. 

But alas, no chalk paint this day.

Keep walking, Sue...

Another shop.

Not sure of the name,

but a sweet little building

chock full of great finds...

Also along the way,

a section of salvage from an old farmhouse...

And finally, I got to SuzAnna's,

where there was this very creative

display of old hankies...

...and then some...

...more...

Another booth featured this lovely

bird assemblage.

Why can't I be this creative?...

This was from a lovely booth

that was just re-done to feature

pink things...

And this display in another

shop featured purple,

even the cowgirl boots!!...

Here are some lovely sachets.

They were wrapped in cellophane,

so didn't photograph too well,

but gorgeous nonetheless...

And some glittery lavender birds

in a chippy iron bowl...

...with one on this pretty plate...

But I stuck to my target, 

forged on to my real destination

and purpose of my visit

(to spend my Christmas gift certificate)...

...and bought my Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint

in Farmhouse White!

Along with a stirrer, since this paint comes in

powdered form and you mix it yourself.

And some bonding agent so that the

paint will cover the highly varnished 

piece of junk dresser that I will use it on...

Oh, of course some wax

and a waxing brush...

Bye-bye gift certificate!

Hello painting adventure!

Do you have any furniture that you will re-finish?

Have you used MMSMP?

If so, I'd love to hear about it!

The Farm Table and a Couple of Procrastinators

Good morning.

If you read this blog, you may remember that a while ago a LONG while ago, I went to one of my favorite antique stores, showed you some photos of my day out, and asked you to guess what item in the photos was something I actually came home with. You can see that post here.

Well, last March my DH decided that he was bored with the winter and tired of being stuck inside. If you are a mom, do you remember when your kids were little and kept telling you how bored they were? After a while it started getting aggravating and so you FOUND them something to do, like clean up their rooms or write a book report (can you tell that I was a young mom back in the day when there were no iPhones, iPads, or computers to play games on?). Well, Hubby kept on with it so finally I said: "Well, why don't you just build us a farm table!". Bad mistake. That afternoon he went out looking at wood and other materials, came home, told me to go over the dimensions with him, and bought the materials the next day. This was a month before we had planned on beginning work up at The Nest. Needless to say, the table got built, I Annie-Sloaned the skirting and legs, along with the six antique chairs that I bought, four in one place (one of which is seen in last photo on the linked blog post above), and two in another. All that needed to be done was to stain the table top and wax the chairs. And there they all sat. In the garage. (Along with two old dressers that I bought almost two years ago and still haven't refinished.) Who uses garages for cars anyway? Ha. We spent so much of the spring and summer working on the other place, that the table simply took a back seat.

So, last week we decided that we want to get moving on our farmhouse look, and that it was time to finish our my project, and there I went. In two days I stained and polyurethaned the top and waxed all the chairs. Yesterday we lugged out the old table and chairs (Craigslist here they come) and put them, where else, but in the garage, and dragged in the new set. We are really pleased with how it came out. We did it on a budget, which was the best part!

Most of our furniture is dark,
and we are trying to lighten it up a little.
Since our dining room is part of the open concept,
and not a formal dining room,
our current table just doesn't work.
I bought it before I met Bob when I did have a
formal dining room.
Goodbye...

...and hello dear sweet farm table...

We will be painting this whole area after the

 holidays, and have something in mind to 

replace the plates on the wall...

Here is a better shot of the top of the table.

The stuff on the table was a bargain.

The Thanksgiving greenery was 80% off at 

Hobby Lobby the other day,

and the candle holders were from our 

outdoor wedding six years ago.

Such a bargain!...

We are currently doing some work in our great room...more on that in a future post. Hopefully, though, not too far in the future. We do tend to procrastinate sometimes!

Are you doing any DIY lately?

A Saturday of antique-hunting...

Good morning! 

On the Saturday of the week that we were in the mountains, we went downtown Hendersonville, NC (the town in which we have our place) to spend some time at the street antique show. Many different vendors brought in their antiques and set up "shop" on the sidewalks along Main Street. Unlike the Garden Jubilee, which we attended last month, the street was not closed down, so it was a win-win for not only the vendors who came to sell, but also for all of the shops.

One of the first things that I fell in love with was with one of the first few vendors that we visited. So of course, I had no rest until we went back to make sure that no one else bought it. I paid for it and they held it until later when we could move the car closer to load it.

Though I didn't originally set out to put

wicker in our porch, I couldn't resist this settee, 

especially with the Victorian scroll in the middle

at the top.

When I went back to pay for it, I also saw this

old "home" sign on an old cabinet door,

so need I say more...

Though we didn't buy anything else at this show, we did break for munchies at what I think is one of the best bake shops in the world, McFarlan Bakery. They even have "no sugar added" goodies. What could be better than this?

The shop is on the left...

Yummy almond pasty...

Mr. Perch drinking coffee...

Sue stuffing her face with pasties...

Hubby suggested that the day was yet young, so we headed up the road towards Asheville. We decided to explore Smiley's Flea Market in Fletcher. We had passed it often, but never stopped in. I am not much of a flea market person, because I don't have the patience to spend hours wading through the kind of junk that I got rid of 30 years ago just to find the one steal that I can't live without. But I did indeed find a steal.

This beauty to add to my newly started collection

of cutter quilts.

(A cutter quilt is one that is not likely to be

in good enough condition to use on a bed,

but can be re-purposed into other

craft items.)

It didn't even smell musty, and...

...the nice gal who sold it said it was $40, but she would

give it to me for $20.

I didn't even have to ask!!...

On our way up to Smiley's, we had seen a sign on a place for estate sales and liquidations. It was on the other side of the street, in a town called Mountain Home, so we decided to hit it on the way back. It was called TEAM Estate Sales, and was a group of dealers that get together every couple of months to pool items that they want to sell. You basically go in, choose your item, remove the sales ticket, which has a number on it that matches a sticker on the item. You go to the desk and pay for it, show someone your receipt, and he brings it out to your car for you. 

They had a huge array of wonderful stuff from dishes to jewelry to beautiful old pine hutches. Below are a couple of photos that I took. I was afraid to take too many, since it was getting crowded and I wanted to protect innocent bystanders from this blog. 

So, we came home with this sweet little table.

It will be painted next time, along with the

settee...

As our Native American friends would have said, it was a "good hunt"! What are you hunting for these days?

I feel old, and a refinished patio table set for Birdsong Cottage...

Good morning. I feel old today. Not because I have any new aches and pains, but because my firstborn turns 38 on this day. I will not mention how old I was when I had her. For obvious reasons.

While Mr. Perch put the finishing touches on the front door at Birdsong last week, I also completed work on the old patio set that I bought in Raleigh a few months ago. We had hauled it up when we came up in April to open the place for the season. Of course, I still didn't get around to painting that trim work!

I had previously painted the frames of the table and chairs back at "real house", and you can see that post here.

You may recall what the furniture looked like before,

shown here at SuzAnna's Antiques...

I painted the old vinyl cushions, again, with 

Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Old White (my go-to color).

In the photo below, I have started to brush on the paint

over an old rust stain that was likely from an old bucket

that someone left on the chair...

After two coats of paint, this is what the cushions

looked like...

And here is a finished chair,

seen with that lovely carpet mentioned in yesterday's post...

Don't you just love it when a plan comes together in such a cheap way?

I hope you have a great day today!

Prettying up old lawn chairs at Birdsong Cottage...

Hello friends. We are now home from Birdsong, so I thought that I would share a little of what we did up there last week.

When we bought the place last year, part of what was included were two lovely lawn chairs in the porch. You may recall their ugliness from one of my posts last year, but just in case you are a new reader, here is a glimpse of what they looked like. One was a rocker and one was not, but they were a matched set, with...

...ever so stunning lime green, black,

 and lemon yellow woven plastic cushion

covers. 

If you are in my age group, you may remember

this color scheme from the early 70's.

Perhaps they were original to this old house. 

I mean this old single wide...

And of course, they had "marvy" old, and very pitted,

aluminum frames.

We were initially going to throw them out,

but they served us well during the remodeling last year.

And were ever so comfortable to boot.

I couldn't bear to be the one to disrupt the chain of

ownership of this stunning couple.

So, like any thrifty all-American woman,

I took out the spray paint and let it rip on the frames... 

...using my ever so trusty Rust-Oleum 

in Metallic.

Which is the WalMart's version of the 

Oil-Rubbed Bronze from the home store

(I forget whether Lowe's or Home Depot)...

And for the cushions, I decided to try Annie Sloan

Chalk Paint in Old White.

It was certainly easier than recovering them,

and would fair better in the humidity.

I hope.

Below you see it as I brushed on the first coat.

I really made sure that I 

worked it into all of the mesh...

After I put a second coat on all sides 

of the cushions,voila!

Here is the finished product.

The cushions now look like they have been

covered in duck cloth.

And they are soft and supple... 

The only drawback now is that the cushions

no longer match the charming old green

AstroTurf porch carpeting. 

Do you remember that stuff?

I guess you can't have everything.

Not all at the same time, anyway!

Now doesn't this just make you want to go out and try to find some comfortable old lawn chairs from days past? Have fun looking!

A few purchases: Art stuff, and a new bureau...

Hello friends.

I'm still trying to catch up with some posts, so I wanted to share with you a few photos of a couple of things that I bought last week at my favorite haunt back home, SuzAnna's.

We are hoping to redo our master bedroom in "real house" and give it a little more of a farmhouse look.

I saw this dresser, snapped a photo, and

showed it to Hubby when I got home.

He liked it well enough to go back with me

and buy it. 

It was painted in a "soft" black,

which he liked.

Not yet sure how it will figure in to

my plan, but time will tell.

The best part is that I don't have to 

do a thing with it. 

Even the drawers slide quite nicely!

For an assemblage project I couldn't resist

this tote.

Can you guess what it is?

Why, a blueberry crate, of course!

So, I have since dry-brushed over the green

striping with black...

...I have a very definite project in mind for this

piece. 

I couldn't resist the timeworn blue-grey

patina on the rest of it...

For just a few bucks I also bought the below

items. A couple will be used in the piece

that I make with the blueberry crate...

Don't you just love the little

ringer on the right?

A couple of the pieces went into 

The Salvage Saloon

for the future...

I hope you find something great today!