never a dull day...: August 2011

(Featured at Apartment Therapy & Tip Junkie)

So I must have taken a little beginning of summer siesta….. and woke up at the END of summer!! Sorry. I promise I have been busy. I took a break from furniture painting (my garage was about 140 degrees) and spent the summer with the kiddos at the pool. I’m now very tan and trying to get back into the swing of everything and hoping to start showing off some of the stuff I did over the summer very soon.

I'll start with my most recent project, by recent I mean I completed it 2 days ago. The Woodsy Nursery Furniture for my soon-to-be-born, newest nephew Preston…. He’s due to arrive around the first of November. And his parents have picked out the cutest woodsy, owl themed bedding.

image via skip hop

Now, I was planning on doing just this plain old white changing table.

But sitting in the garage I also had this plain old white matching 4 drawer chest....

My parents were visiting and planning on hauling the changing table to my brother in 5 days. They had plenty of room in their giant RV for the chest too. That meant Preston needed two pieces of furniture and so began my 5 day painting marathon.

After filling holes, doing minor repairs and lightly sanding everything down. I painted both pieces a really nice, neutral, stone color that matched the bedding.

Then I sketched some tall trees that wrapped around and over all the nooks and crannies of the furniture. (you'll have to look very closely... pencil didn't show up very well!)

And painted the trees a soft oatmeal color.

After the trees were complete I added leaves. LOTS of leaves. In 4 colors and 2 patterns just to make it more challenging because my FIVE DAY deadline for completion wasn’t nearly overwhelming enough.

Of course, no tree is complete without some sort of flying bird, right? My trees were no different. I perched an Owl on each tree. One on the side of the changing table and the other on the front of the chest so little Preston didn’t grow up feeling like he was being stared at constantly by Owls!

After 4 days and 20+ hours of painting all that woodsy-goodness I did something that almost caused my Mother instant heart failure. I pulled out my trusty fine tipped sharpie and added a little visual interest. Think of it as contrast stitching…. I outlined leaves and owls and trees.

Then to make it just a little more heart wrenching for my mom, I added a little stippling. My Mom thought the heat must have gone to my head, and people it was getting HOT in the garage. After several comments about “adding work for yourself” I think she got it! Which was good, because once I started it’s not like I could really go back. :)

On the evening of the fourth day, my Mom made dinner and I glazed furniture.

I woke in a panic on the fifth day hoping the glaze had dried enough for the finish coats and hardware. Because my parents were scheduled to load it up and haul the freshly painted furniture to my brother in Minneapolis that very day!!!! Seriously THAT very same afternoon.

Somehow I finished. The finish coats dried. The insanely cute, perfectly rustic, twiggy hardware was on. The pictures were taken. And the giant RV was loaded. I informed my dad that once it left my zip code it was no longer under warranty… so drive carefully!! And raced to get my new kindergartener from school all the while wondering how long it would be before I got to see the woodsy furniture again…. and wondering what in the world Preston's parents were going to think of the furniture they knew nothing about!