Two Queen Anne Side Tables

In our last post, we talked about the spray-paint-everything phase we went through when we first started refinishing furniture. We would buy furniture for cheap from garage sales and thrift shops, and then quickly spray paint them before sealing with two or three layers of poly. I picked up two Queen Anne-style side tables from Goodwill that I wanted to refinish for my new (old) apartment living room. Just as with the heirloom dresser, these two tables were sprayed a deep, dark walnut and the hardware was sprayed a metallic silver. We thought that an appropriate follow-up to our last post would be to show you how we transformed these two Queen Annes.

These tables are great because they're nice and deep, providing a lot of surface area for lamps, picture frames, and whatever else you might want to place on them! After using these two tables in my living room, I brought them upstairs and used them as nigh stands for two years. They're definitely great pieces of furniture, but they were definitely ugly! I didn't like the hardware - it looks too formal and feminine, and just OLD. I knew that I wanted to replace the hardware when I refinished these two pieces.

We painted these two tables in Country Chic's "hurricane," a warm, grayish blue. We also painted the insides of the drawers in "vanilla frosting" to cover the spray paint that had made it inside when the tables were first painted. Then we lightly distressed the edges to give the tables some character. After the painting was done, the tables got two coats of polyurethane to seal and protect.

The finished tables! We were pleased with the new look of these pieces, and were happy to given them a modern update. The old, outdated drawer pulls are gone, and the details of the tables are highlighted by the new, fresh paint color. How do you think these two pieces look? They would look great in a living room or bedroom!  

The Heirloom Dresser

When we first started refinishing furniture a few years back, we had a very different idea of what "refinishing" meant. To us, it basically involved spray painting everything and then covering it in two or three coats of polyurethane. It was fast, cheap, and it made trying to furnish my very first apartment a relatively easy task. I went to Goodwill almost every day on my lunch break to search for  great pieces of furniture that I could get for relatively cheap. I spent less than $100 and bought a very large dresser I planned on using as an entertainment center, two end tables, and a coffee table - all of which were solid wood and very well-built.

For my bedroom, my parents had given me a hand-me-down dresser, which was gifted to my grandparents for their wedding. The dresser is solid wood with dovetail jointing and wood veneer. During my must-spray-paint-everything phase, I had painted this piece a deep, dark blackish-brown. I kept the original hardware, but spray painted them metallic silver.

The hardware had worn through the years, and because I didn't seal the paint when I had originally sprayed them, they were starting to show their age because the paint was chipping off. Even though I love the patina on the hardware, I didn't like the overall style of the pulls and decided that I was going to replace them.

There are a lot of great new products, like milk paint, chalk / mineral paint, and gel stains available these days, and now I'm over my spray-paint-everything phase. We love the ease of chalk / mineral paints, and have mentioned our favorite brand, Country Chic, several times on this blog. For this piece, I wanted to choose a color that was bright and fresh, but that had a good balance of masculine and feminine vibes. I chose "backyard picnic," which I had originally seen on a dresser for sale at Carriage House Consignment, because I liked the bright tone but the color itself reminded me of the Adirondack and Catskill mountains of upstate New York, where our grandparents had grown up and where we had spent our childhood summers. I thought that this color would compliment the dark hardware that I had in mind.

After three coats of "backyard picnic," I lightly distressed the piece so that the dark spray paint underneath highlighted the clean, straight lines of this piece. I covered the entire dresser in three coats of polyurethane for protection. For the hardware, I choose cup pulls with a "tumbled dark gunmetal" finish, to add a little more masculinity to the piece.

The finished pieced. I love the color, it makes the room brighter and seemingly changes hues throughout the day. In the morning, it's a bright, fresh green and at night and in darker light, it appears to take on more of an evergreen / deep turquoise color. I love the cup pulls and the subtle distressing, which accentuates the clean lines of the piece. I'm glad that I was able to take my grandparent's heirloom dresser and bring it into 2015, and I'm excited to keep this piece in the family for another 70 years. Do you have a hand-me-down piece of furniture that reminds you of family? Does it need a facelift to be brought into the modern world? Comment below! 

The Thomasville Side Table

I picked this table up at a local thrift shop for $20 - it's a Thomasville, has four drawers and dovetail joints. The top was in a bit of disrepair, but the price was too good to pass up. My plan was simple: sand and re-stain the top of the piece and paint the base. I'm a big fan of the two-tone look that seems to be very popular right now, and this was the perfect piece for it. I wanted to keep the original hardware because I thought it looked great, but I wasn't a fan of the bright, shiny brass finish.

This table is solidly built, so dismantling it for painting and sanding and staining took just a bit of effort. I opted for what's quickly becoming my go-to paint color: Country Chic's vanilla frosting. I'm not sure what it is with this hue, but it goes with EVERYTHING. It's light and white enough to be neutral and fit in almost any room, but warm enough to feel cozy and relaxed.

Here is the table after two coats of paint. I went for three to ensure complete coverage. After I was finished painting, I simply sanded the top of the piece and finished it with two coats each of lightly-tinted stain and polyurethane. I wanted to highlight the great detailing along the edges, so I lightly sanded the corners of the drawers. All that was left was to spray paint the original pulls an antiqued bronze. Rustoleum is the BEST spray paint, in my opinion. It covers everything and is reasonably priced.

Here's the finished product! If you look closely, you can see the light distressing around the edges. I even distressed the hardware after the spray paint had dried so that a bit of the shiny brass finish was peeking through the heavier bronze tones of the paint. After a few coats of finishing wax, I was done!

Leave us a comment below if you love this Thomasville side table! This piece is currently for sale, so contact us at blessingdesignhouse@gmail.com if you're interested in purchasing it, or if you have any questions regarding the piece.

The Lane Coffee Table

We love a good story, especially one involving furniture and our home state of Virginia! The Red Cedar Chest Company was formed in 1912 by John Lane and his son, Ed in Altavista, Virginia. After cornering the market on cedar chests, the company expanded greatly throughout the next 60 years, eventually manufacturing tables, casegoods, and accent pieces before acquiring a reclining chair company in Mississippi in 1970. From there, the sky was the limit for the Lane Furniture company. Today, Lane is part of the Heritage Home Group, one of the largest furniture manufacturing companies!

We found this beautiful, mid-century modern Lane coffee table at a thrift store for cheap. It was in rough shape, but we new just what the piece needed - a little bit of elbow grease!

After a good cleaning, we sanded the entire table with 200-grit sandpaper to remove all of the dents, dings, scratches, and stains.

We were surprised to find the gorgeous grains on the top of this wood, with the lightest portion in the center of the table. Just beautiful! Next, it was time for stain. We chose a deep ebony stain to highlight the beautiful grain of the table top.

After several coats of stain, we sealed the top with polyurethane and painted the base of this table in Country Chic's vanilla frosting, a creamy and warm white.

All finished! We lightly distressed the edges of the piece in order to highlight them without being too overt. We thought, a mid-century piece might have minimal wear after 60+ years of gentle use.

This table is low and long, and would be perfect in a spacious living or sitting room to accent a couch or settee. Let us know if you're interested in purchasing this beautiful Lane coffee table by emailing us at blessingdesignhouse@gmail.com!

The $5 Dresser

One of our biggest picks of the year was in early January, when four of us went to an old farm house in Clifton, Virginia that is slated for demolition. The house was constructed in 1850, and the previous owners included Annabelle Ashenhurst, who bought the home in 1950, and her second husband Russell. Annabelle and Russell each served in World War II, and in their later years each worked as school teachers and librarians. Annabelle even worked on the Manhattan Project!

Because Annabelle and Russell had lived in the house for so long, it was filled to the brim with treasures, and because the house is going to be torn down, these treasures needed to go! We were lucky enough to be asked to look through the house (and the two barns!) to see if there was anything we would be interested in buying. We did. There was. We left with three truckloads of pickin's that day.

And three days later, we made a return trip and left with a fourth truckload. It was on this second day that we found this cute little dresser with spindle legs sitting unloved in a bathroom. We picked up the dresser for $5!

This dresser is solid wood, with dovetail joints and some great detailing on the top two drawers. We're not sure how long the dresser sat in the bathroom, but several different paint colors, that were mostly on the front, told us that it was probably for a long time.

We've said it once and we'll say it again: the first thing we do when we get a new (old) piece, especially if it's been sitting in an 1850's farm house for decades, is to give it a good cleaning. We like to us warm water and either dish soap or liquid laundry detergent.

After the dresser was cleaned, we lightly sanded the entire piece to remove any flaking paint and to smooth out areas where paint had chipped off. This is an old piece, and we didn't want to hide its age.

To give this piece a fresh look, we opted to use Country Chic's "bliss" chalk paint.  We started with the body of the dresser, mostly because we weren't too sure on how we wanted to handle the drawers. The picture above is after two coats of paint!

Even though we weren't going to paint the back of the piece, it still needed to be addressed. Over the years, wood dries out and begins to turn dull, grayish hues. To fix this, we used Old English wood conditioner, which is a lemon-scented, oil-based liquid that you rub on with a rag. The top photo was taken right after we started to re-condition the wood, and the bottom is the finished product. We also ended up using the wood oil to re-condition the sides and insides of the drawers.

After a third coat of paint on the body of the dresser, and three coats on the drawers, we were ready to distress the piece. We wanted the distressing to look natural, and used it to highlight the spindle legs and detailing on the top two drawers. We also wanted to highlight some of the dings and scraps that this beauty had acquired throughout her lifetime - like we said, we didn't want to hide the age of this piece! Two coats of protective wax were used to seal the piece.

We found a great deal on brass knobs at one of our favorite stores, Carriage House Consignment in Aldie, VA (this is also our local Country Chic retailer!). We had picked up a lot of these knobs, which we also used to refinish the white night stand and yellow dresser that was turned into a matching set.

The finished dresser! Not bad for $5, right? This little cutie is for sale, and we are asking $225. If you're interested in making this dresser yours, send us an email at blessingdesignhouse@gmail.com!

The Victorian Side Table

One lesson that we've learned about huntin' through flea markets, consignment shops, and antique stores, is that if you see something unique and original - perhaps a piece you've never seen before - buy it! Haggle a little bit to get the best price, but make sure you are taking your unique find home with you! That's pretty much the story with how we came home with this solid wood, Victorian-style side table. We were originally looking for burlap sacks to re-cover Dad's chairs when we came across this unique piece in the attic of a barn!

We had never seen a solid wood table with such detailing before, and we knew we had to have it.  The previous owner had spray painted the table a glossy black, which we liked for the simplicity but disliked because we felt as though the details of the table just faded into the background.  The table had a great original patina / antiqued look on the top, simply from sitting in a barn for so long, which we knew that we wanted to keep. We finished the piece with some gold wax to add a shimmery, elegant feel to the piece.

We picked Country Chic's "rustic charm" for the base of the table, which covered completely in three coats.  After the paint had dried, we lightly sanded around the edges and the detailing on the base to reveal the original glossy black finish, highlighting all of the ornate detail that makes this piece one-of-a-kind.

The finished product! We were please with how this table turned out.  We loved the way the the original black paint on the base helped to highlight the details of this piece, and we were happy that we decided to keep the original black top with natural patina.

This piece is currently for sale!  If you're interested in purchasing this unique, Victorian-style side table, shoot us an email at BlessingDesignHouse@gmail.com!

The White Night Stand

I found this night stand when a couple of us drove to Clifton, Va to an old 1850's farmhouse. We found so many pieces that day but one of my favorites was this white, wood night stand. 

It is so simple and useful, I could not leave it sitting in a house that was soon to be torn down! After a good scrub with some soap and water, I painted the shell Country Chic's "Pebble Beach" grey. 

Then I painted the drawers Country Chic's "Vanilla Frosting" white for a chic two-toned look. We found a steal of deal at Carriage House Consignments off Rt.50 in Aldie on 24 brass knobs. They added the perfect finishing touch to this piece! 

I love this design. It is so simple and elegant. It would be perfect for a shabby chic bedroom or even a little girl's room. To complete the whole idea behind this night stand, I refinished our old yellow, wood dresser that has sat in our craft room for years. We used it to store our arts & crafts tools but after a sitting there over the years, it's use had diminished. 

I used the same color scheme and knobs to create the perfect match for the night stand. 

They are in great condition and offer a ton of storage. We're selling these either separately; the night stand will be $70 and the dresser $200. Or you can have them both for $250. 

Email us at blessingdesignhouse@gmail.com if you're interested in these pieces!