Painted Furniture

Today I am posting pictures of furniture I painted over 10 years ago for our office/den in Arizona.  I am using this same furniture here in Michigan but not in our office.  Since this is a two story house with a completely different layout I had to find places to use it in the downstairs area.  We have our office in the loft area upstairs and bought new furniture for it.  I have the game table in the living room, the small cabinet in the kitchen area and the chest in an open area by the garage door.  At first I had planned to repaint the flower designs in a different color but when we had the kitchen installed I realized how well the current colors match so I am leaving them as is.  Here are the photos.

This is the game table with the new swag light we made from two different light fixtures.  As you can notice, I don't have any window treatments yet.  I left up the mini blinds that came with the house but those will eventually be gone.  I am not sure which direction I want to go with the windows.

This is a closeup of the game table top.  Roger built this table.

This is the chest.  It is about 3' long by 17' high.  I got it at a yard sale for $10.  It was solid black before I refinished it.

I'm not sure where I got this small cabinet but it was probably another yard sale item or maybe I bought it at Target.  What I do remember is it was solid white before the refinish.  

In my last post I mentioned I would be painting a napkin holder.  So far I got it base coated but haven't painted a design on it because I can't decide what I want.  Too many decisions to make when re-decorationg a house.  Granted, a napkin holder is a small thing when I have to pick out hardwood for the floors and window treatments but it is still another decision to make.

A 30 year old painting and a preview of my new kitchen

My new kitchen is nearing completion. I hung some art and thought I would share what I chose with you.  One of the paintings is something I did at least 30 or more years ago.  It is a still life done in oils on a wood plaque.  I painted it before I switched to using acrylics.  The pattern is not an original drawing done by me but a pattern traced from a pattern book.  That was back in the days when I taught decorative painting classes and all my students used patterns from books.  It is so long ago that I don't remember which book it was from or who the artist/author was. If I remembered I would give her credit for the drawing.   I did my own take on the painting with my own color palette.  Here is a photo of the painting.

The other painting I hung is a cross painting I did a few years ago titled "Cross in Colors of the Southwest".  Here is a photo of it hanging in my new kitchen.  I am not ready to post photos of the whole kitchen because it is not finished yet.  The back splash still needs to be installed.  Once that is done I will share pictures with you.

It is hard to get a good photo without all the light reflections.  At some point in the future, after we get our new work shops built in the basement, Roger will make stained glass windows for the back door and the windows over the new cabinets.  I had the island and cabinets painted in a contrasting color to the other wood finished cabinets in the rest of the kitchen. The color is called "Winter Wheat".  We painted the wall you are seeing in a deep burgundy color to add some drama. It is the same color as the entry wall with the coat hangers from a few posts back.  The rest of the kitchen is painted in two shades of tan.  When the project is done I will post before and after photos.

I haven't painted in over a week because I have been busy with other things but today I don't have much to do so think I will change the color of a napkin holder that I used in Tucson to match my new kitchen color scheme.

Something for me!

My latest project something that I did for myself.  I needed a side table on my side of the couch so I went on a hunt around my house to see if I could find something that would serve the purpose.  Since we moved I keep moving odd pieces of furniture to different rooms to find just the right place for them.  After looking on the first two floors and finding nothing I went to the basement where I found the perfect thing.  It is a magazine rack - side table that I had been using in my shop as a table to hold my paint pallet and water jar.  It was in pretty rough shape after years of use. Here is the before photo.

The bottom wasn't too bad but the top was a mess.  I went to work on it and here is how it looked after I cleaned it up.

It took me awhile to decide what subject I wanted to paint.  Most times when I'm doing something for myself I have a hard time making a decision on what I want.  After I finished the tray with the teal rose that was featured in my last post I got a lot of good comments on it and since teal is an accent color in my living room I thought it would be the perfect thing to paint on the top of the table.  I liked the natural wood bottom so left it as is.

Yesterday was the day they started the installation on our new kitchen and I wanted to keep an eye on what was going on so I made a painting area in my living room and worked on the table while I watched the men working on my kitchen.  Here are photos of them working and me painting.

They put in a long day of work and so did I.  I'm happy to say I got the table finished but there is still more work to be done on the kitchen.  I'll post photos of the kitchen when it is done but that may be a few weeks away.  We still have to get the sink installed along with new light fixtures and cabinet handles.  What I can show you is the finished table.

The first photo shows a closeup of the top and the bottom photo shows it in place next to the couch holding my nice warm, cozy couch blanket.

I have no idea what I will be painting next.  I'll be spending a lot of time working on filling all my new kitchen cabinets.  I will also need a painting for a wall in the kitchen so may start work on that soon.