The Feisty Painter?

The knitting has slowed down in the last few weeks, as I worked on getting my office/yoga room/personal yarn shop organized.

This involved taking out a china cabinet that had been housing my design samples and absolute favorite yarns.  My good friend Laura and her husband took it off my hands, along with the 36" LeClerk Artisat loom yesterday. Bless them!

My goal for the last three-plus years has been to destash down to the point where I have only a few skeins of sock yarn for those startitis emergencies, but to actually buy yarn for specific projects when I am actually ready to knit them.  Novel, I know.

At the moment, I still have enough yarn for, at least, fourteen full-size sweaters, dozens of socks, but I am probably at a quarter of what I had.  This actually feels very liberating, as the emotional weight of a very large stash was eating away at me.

My fear with the china cabinet with its glass shelves, is that they would break under the weight of all those woolens.  The cabinet also took up a lot of space the room, literally and visually.  I felt swamped by it.

In anticipation of its departure, I knew I needed something to house the knitted samples and a few of the absolute favorites from the stash.

Within days of mentioning it to the handsome husband, he emailed me with a picture of a pie safe and asked me if it would work.  The dimensions were basically 36" wide x 60" tall x 18" deep.  Perfect!

Well, I say perfect, except for that teal color going on and stainless bolt thing at the top.  This was the original cabinet, as it sat in its former owner's home.

Rustic is a good word.

But, I had plans for it!

I bought Annie Sloan chalk paint in Graphite and French Linen, as well as some of her clear wax. The plan was to paint the outside in Graphite and the inside in French Linen, wax the whole thing a couple of three times, then add new hardware.

A couple of weeks ago, I did just that!

This was obviously an "in progress shot.  The Annie Sloan chalk paint is amazing!!  It is thick, almost like pudding and goes on easily.  Prior to adding the wax and buffing, it had a matte, chalk-like (no surprise!) finish.

The following are the finished photos of the piece in place, just remember, I inherited the room from my younger daughter who chose the paint colors and curtain sheers when she was five years old...

To the left is the faithful Rita, standing (lying) guard over more of the stash, as well as my blocking mats. 

The pie safe is a lot different from the china cabinet, but I love it! 

I added cedar planks to cover the punched tin on the sides, as well as a couple of dozen lavender sachets to help protect against the dreaded moth.

Flush from the success of this makeover, I decided I wanted to do something for my older daughter. Both my girls enjoy sitting down to apply their makeup.

The younger one bought a sleek Ikea desk last year to use as her vanity, but the older daughter has been using a computer table with a missing/broken drawer.

In my mind, I wanted to find a vanity/dressing able that I could paint for the older one. 

Saturday afternoon, the original plan was for the family (the husband, younger daughter, and me) to go to the movies, but the 15-year-old balked at the last minute.  So, I asked the husband to take me to an antique store instead.To my surprise, he agreed!

As we walked around, looking at everything, I explained my plan to the husband, including my desire not to spend more than $125 or so.  He looked skeptical.

Mid-way through the store, we came across this kidney-shaped vanity/desk.

I thought it was perfect, but it had originally been priced $245 or $249, and it was marked down to $199.

I did not want to spend that and I did not know if the older daughter would like it.

The cost of the Annie Sloan paint and dark wax (instead of the clear I already had) would be another $130 or so, not to mention the acquisition of additional (pretty) knobs and a glass table top cut to size had to be taken into consideration, as well. 

Add to that, the husband was initially unimpressed.  Which means, we continued to poke around for a few minutes and eventually left.

Once we were driving away, I sent the daughter a text with the photos, as she was already aware of what my plans were.

She texted back immediately:  "I love it!"

As soon as I told the husband, he turned around and we went back.

He waited in the car, as I went in to inquire about the piece. As we looked at it, I fumbled trying to open a drawer or two, asked about the missing mirror that had obviously been attached to the back, scowled a bit, and finally asked what his best price was.

He said:  "$125."

I said:  "Done."

We returned on Sunday in the husband's pickup to pick it up.

Ridiculously delighted is the only way I can described how I feel about this!

For color inspiration, I found this picture:

From the Annie Sloan chalk paint line, I will use Aubusson on the outside (perhaps with a little graphite added to darken it) and Emperor's Silk for the drawers.

Below is a shot of both colors together, which is lovely, I just want the blue to be a bit darker.

Then, of course, there are these mercury glass knobs...

There are no plans to start right this second, as I must order the paint first, but I have high hopes this will be finished before the heat of the summer descends.  The garage will be not a very nice place to be after a few more weeks.