I Am A Franchise!

     Well it is official. I will have a second booth space as of this weekend in a neighboring town. I will be joining Market Antiques in Ottawa, KS! I am very excited, but nervous too. I love my booth in Antiques on The Prairie and have no intentions of leaving, just expanding to a larger market as well. So with that being said, I am sure you can imagine the whirlwind of activity going on around here as I get things ready for the new space.
     I want to show you a pair of chairs that I just finished. They were a gift from my friend when here parents cleaned out their storage unit and didn't want to haul them out-of-state to their new home. Soooooo love free finds :)  They are beautiful old chairs that were very well built and sturdy. Just in need of a makeover.

So pretty, but in need of some love.

Fabulous!

The picture doesn't do them justice. They have beautiful carved legs and backs. They have such a rich patina that I didn't want to ruin so instead of stripping them, I used Minwax furniture restorer. It worked wonderfully! After some new fabric they are ready for a new home :)  They will be in the Ottawa booth this weekend. Come check them out! See you soon!

Join The Antiques On The Prairie Facebook Page!

     Hey everyone!  The two chairs that I featured in my last post are in their spot at my booth just waiting for someone to take them home and love them!  I think they turned out pretty awesome and hope they find a home soon. My next project is a dining room set with four Windsor chairs. So cute!! I plan to have it ready by next Wed. or Thurs. I need some items in the booth to sell so I have room for it. :) My garage/workshop is still holding some great treasures that I need to redo and share with all of you!
     I am in charge of the Facebook page for Antiques On The Prairie and will be posting new pictures each week to advertise our inventory. I hope to give exposure to people who might not know what great finds can be had there! Come on over and join the page and share it with your friends as well!  Hope you all have a great weekend!  Before I go I thought I would share a couple of pictures of a cute little table currently available for adoption at Antiques On The Prairie :)

Done in ASCP in Old White

ASCP is Annie Sloan Chalk Paint ;)

My Latest Makeover

    I am so excited to show you my latest makeover project!  I found these chairs at the Habitat Restore about 6 weeks ago. They were a great price and I really thought they had a lot of potential. HOWEVER, they were going to involve more upholstery skills than I have used before. I love a challenge, but I just put these on the back burner until I had time to really figure out how exactly I was going to transform these beauties. Let me show you the before..........

Can you say "Hello 1980's, you can have your nasty salmon velour fabric back!"  I do love the lines of the frame, but the fabric and the puffy back cushion had to go!! Drum roll please......................

A nice new paint job in dark walnut, some new tan fabric, a sleeker back cushion, a super cute pillow, and Voila!! Fabulous :) One down one to go! Hope they will both be in the booth by Friday.  See you soon! 

Did You Miss Me?

     Whew!! It has been busy around here :0)  I have been up to my eyeballs in furniture stripper, sanding, and painting! I have gotten a lot done, but I am exhausted. I found an awesome solid maple table and six Windsor chairs on Craig's List a couple of weeks ago and was finally ready to get started on refinishing it. I had to get my courage up since the chairs and the table legs had been painted with a very heavy hand in a horrible flesh colored paint. Little did I know that the same "heavy hand" had applied not just one color, but three different colors to them. Underneath the fleshy tan was white, then a very vivid blue......what were they thinking?!  This was not going to be one of those happy accidents you stumble across during the sanding process. This was going to be a lot of hard work. After sanding some of the top layer off I applied the stripper and waited for it to do it's job. Apparently the stripper didn't get the memo that it had a job to do. I had to scrape, and scrape, and scrape some more, and apply new layers of chemical, and scrub that with steel wool. And finally I got most(not all by any means)of the paint off.

After stripper but before sanding

The chair on the right is still sporting the skin colored paint. Yuck!

After sanding and painting but before distressing and waxing

I will share the finished product hopefully tomorrow. For now I am going to bed and not stripping any furniture for a while!  See you soon!

Something For The Little Ones Too

  I don't know if it is my desire for spring to be here or just a need for a change, but I have been doing some different projects this week. I wanted to do something cute that could work in a nursery or child's room. I went to my fabric bin and found some great pieces that I bought a while back to make dresses for my girls. Wow how time flies.....they have been in there for 6 years! I love them just as much today as I did when I bought them :)  They may never become the dresses I had in mind, but they are really cute pillows!

 

So girly and fun!






I love the stitching and sequins on this fabric. They are heading up to the booth after prying them from my daughters hands. I'll have to make her some :)

I also made some pillows from white chenille fabric with a floral butterfly piping. They would be great in a nursery or a little girls room. I could see a whole bedding set from the floral fabric.....hmmm may have just found my next project!

So soft and sweet!

I also made a couple of nursery signs that are waiting for someone to take them home and love them!  Come check it out if you get a chance!  I hope to do some little boy pillows soon as I don't want them to be left out!  See you soon!



    







To Paint Or Not To Paint?........That Is The Question

     Ok friends, I officially have a dilema on my hands.  I found some really awesome Nichols and Stone Windsor arm chairs last week. I was able to get them for an amazing price(thanks to an error in the ad they ran on Craig's List). I felt guilty, but the very nice lady at the consignment store told me they would absolutely honor the price since it was their mistake.  Alrighty then. My momma didn't raise no fool! I jumped at the chance :)  After getting them home I began to do some research online on Nichols and Stone chairs. I am not very savvy in the world of higher end furnishings. I was SHOCKED to see my chairs listed on ebay for $299 each!! The finish on my chairs is not perfect so I was prepared to sand and paint them black(because I simply ADORE black Windsor chairs)distress them, and wax them. I am totally afraid of ruining the value of the chairs. I did see that Nichols and Stone does a black distressed finish on some of their pieces, so it could be a finish that you might find on these chairs. I just don't know if this particular chair would have been available in that finish as it is no longer in production. I am guessing they are about 20 yrs old.  So my question to you is paint or not paint?

So awesome, but see the finish damage in the seat?

Side view

These are such super awesome chairs! So heavy and well-made. I want to do right by them, but can't you just imagine them black, distressed, and fabulous?!

Isn't She Lovely?

     Well she is done!! I absolutely adore this chair. I truly thought about keeping her here, but my desire to have an awesome booth won out and she is there waiting for someone to take her home :)  After getting all her joints glued and sturdy again, she was sanded, painted, distressed, and waxed. I then reupholstered the seat and attached a pleated skirting. Since she is a primitive lady I left the hem out in favor of a raw edge. I knew gimp would be too formal of a look for her so the trim is simply braided strips of her fabric that I tore into strands. I am thrilled with the end result. What do you think?!

Such a beauty!

Her pretty skirt

Her lovely distressed arm

All About The Kids!

     Well it has been busy, crazy, exhausting, and all about my kids lately.  When you are the mom of three busy kids that is what happens from time to time. I have been able to get a few projects completed, and a few are in the works. I have just finished painting a cute little chair, and hope to have it distressed and upholstered by Thursday. It just called my name when I saw it at the thrift store. It was so wobbly and covered in the most outdated 70's fabric, but I fell in love!

Can't you just hear her desperate cry to be pretty again?

Here is a close-up of the fabric :) Super duper 70ish!!!

She has been glued, sanded, painted black and is awaiting her final reveal with new fabric! Gonna leave you hanging for a few days!   See you soon!

Busy, Busy, Busy

     It has certainly been quite a busy place around here lately! I have been shopping, sanding, painting, sewing, all the things I dearly love!  I am so excited about my recent finds. I purchased a beautiful desk that will be transformed into a buffet, 4 amazing Windsor arm chairs that will be painted and distressed, and the cutest little chair that I will paint and upholster. I can not wait!! It was too cold to work in the garage today, so I sewed a couple of pillows and took a nap. Yep you heard me. It doesn't happen very often and I am usually very anti-nap, but today it was fabulous. Me, a blanket, pillow, and four dogs made ourselves comfy on the couch for an hour.  :) I know that I will be at a volleyball tournament all day tomorrow so I didn't have any prep work to do for projects. Work will begin again in earnest on Monday.
    I thought it might be fun to share some pictures of my kitchen from my portfolio since everything else is in limbo for a day or two!

Vignette on my stove top

The cutest kitchen island in the whole world!

View looking into kitchen from living room

View looking back towards the living room

It is not a big room, but it is primitive, super functional, and I LOVE it!  See you later :)

Stenciling Fabulousness- Is That Even A Word?

     My project the last couple of days has been stenciling signs. It may sound strange, but I am much more comfortable painting or upholstering a piece of furniture than I am painting a sign. So it was with some nervousness that I brought in my sanded cabinet doors and waited for ideas to come. What color to paint them, what saying to put on them, what style should they be? I started with my personal preference of primitve style, black background, and a simple "family" on the front. Then I distressed it and waxed it.  I think it turned out pretty well :)

 After finishing the first one I felt more confident so I decided to try my hand at stenciling a trio of small plates that I picked up at Goodwill. It went way more smoothly than I expected!

I love them and decided to attach some turquoise ribbon to the back to hang them from. Here is the end result.

I was on a roll and did two more signs. I feel pretty proud of myself! I will hopefully branch out a bit with sign designs :)

They are the two on the left that say "Family" and "Cherish/Love" 

See you soon!