Sweet Tea Furniture

It's delivery day! Here's a couple more pictures of this sweet old lady! 😀

While she may look pretty much the same as the day she arrived at the shop, this 200 year old gal has had a bunch of work done. The goal was to preserve her patina while shoring her up for the next decades of her life!

What you can't see in the picture is all the clamping, gluing, bracing, used to pull her together nice and tight. She has a new back to add structure and stability, new drawer guides, new magnetic closure, backstop to keep the doors from closing in too far, and brand new custom shelves to replace the original warped/cupped shelves. We also gave the thirsty wood/finish a wax/oil treatment to rehydrate! It's like a spa for furniture!

She'll be heading home this week, and taking her place in the kitchen for additional storage! The pictures don't do her justice...she's showstopper!

Hardware is a great place to start for dating furniture. These square-head nails would indicate that this pie safe is 1830's or earlier.

Normally, Keith likes to deconstruct pieces that have warped out of square but, in this instance, the piece is entirely too fragile. He's digging deep in his bag of tricks with this old gal! She's had many repairs over the years, decades and centuries...repairs that worked with the warping rather than correcting the warp (treating the symptoms, not the issue--this is common).

Not only is this piece incredibly old, it also has tremendous sentimental value to our sweet client. So much so, that Mr. Client, while pretty handy himself, didn't want to be the accountable party to the repairs! No pressure, Keith!! 😅😂😬

Our latest patient is in the OR with our resident surgeon, Keith! This OLD pie safe, in all its chippy goodness, is getting shored up (not refinished). She's a little rickety after all these decades ( ) 🤷‍♀️🤚.

We've been on hiatus from furniture since late August. It was a much needed break! But we're ready to get back in the shop. This project was the perfect catalyst to get us going again. ❤

From old TV cabinet to stylish storage! These client pictures are giving me life!! Suddenly, I want to organize something 😁🤷‍♀️!

Check out these before and after pictures! 😍😍😍

Do y'all remember my last post about my struggles with this piece? Talk about a humbling experience. Sharing my story was the best thing I could have done. I heard from so many fellow artists who have had similar experiences which reinforced for me that I'm part of a pretty amazing community of painters! I also recieved so much encouragement from all of you...you lifted me up!

Here she is today! She's heading home in a few hours. I'll remember her forever. We've spent quite a bit time together ❤. Also, I couldn't have asked for a better client! Kim has been wonderful and patient and sweet and gracious. I'm so fortunate!

And a special shout out to my dude...it's Keith's birthday, today!! Happy birthday, sweetheart! 🎂🍰🎁🎊🎉🥰😘

Happy Saturday, y'all! Today was supposed to be delivery day for this TV cabinet repurpose project. It's been kicking my tail for weeks. We went with a custom mix of milk paint colors. I really wanted the milk paint look, with its subtle color variations, and natural age effect. I'm in love with the design!!

If you've worked with traditional milk paint, you know how amazing it looks! While the picture of this piece looks amazing, I realized, at this point, that I wasn't happy with the finish on the outside. What you don't see in the photo is that I had a ton of crazing/cracking in several places. I can't tell you how much remediation I did to correct the cracking. 🥺🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️

Cracking and chipping is part of the charm of milk paint. You never really know how or when it will happen, but you can mitigate the risk. With this piece being pressed wood, I did my usual prep work, taking care not to compromise the the original finish; you don't want to expose the particle board. Anyway, it all went well. I primed and achieved excellent adhesion! I thought we were on our way. And then I started with the milk paint. It seemed like business as usual after the first coat. It was with the second coat when all started to go downhill.

If you paint furniture, you know that there's always issues. It's just part of the process. Many times, once you step back, you don't see those little imperfections that are so obvious when you're looking at it inches from your face. I was hoping that would be the case, here. Sadly, after a couple of days "living with it", I decided that I wasn't comfortable sending it home. I called my client to break the news. She was incredibly gracious and understanding!

We'll be refinishing the outside with the professional grade products that are more suitable for this application. I've learned a lot. The big lesson is that my "magic" finishing skills can't overcome every single problem!! 😅😬

If you've read this far, bless you! We tend to only share the good, but there's sometimes issues behind the prettiest of pictures.

How's this for an inspo board!?! Can't wait to share finished pictures with y'all so you can see how these inspo pics play out in the finished piece! 😍

Any guesses???

One more round of sanding and one more coat of seal, and it'll be a wrap for this baby!! Another family piece brought back from the brink, and ready for several more decades of love and memories!

I LOVE client pictures! Check out this church pew we refinished a couple of weeks ago! How gorgeous is this front porch?! So warm, but bright, and certainly inviting! 😍🥰

Let the finishing fun begin! The cabinet is primed and ready for paint and the table is back to bare wood and ready for sealer! This is the blank canvas stage 😍🙌

Confession: we might be celebrating this 4th of July shop day with a little day drinking 🤷‍♀️. It started as an honest lemonade made with homemade peach simple syrup. It tasted great! And then...the thought of rum popped into our heads. Fast forward a bit, and now we're sanding and prepping with huge grins on faces 🤦‍♀️😁. We'll save the power tools for tomorrow morning! 🙌

In other news, this beast of a TV cabinet is getting an upstyle/restyle, with additional shelves and a new back, and a gorgeous custom color!