I have a website!!!

Yay! I finally have a website!! So many new things going on and I'm so sorry I've been neglectful here! This is why it is SO important to go to my Facebook page (which is also linked with my Twitter account). But now I also have a website where you can view all my work and see what I have for sale! I can even sell online now but I haven't gotten all of that set up so if you're interested in anything just send me a message through my e-mail, the contact page, or hop on over to my Facebook page.

I've also changed my name because I started offering interior painting. I've had two jobs so far and a few on the horizon, as well as refinishing some kitchen cabinets!! It's all so exciting!! Ok, so my website is www.SLPDecor.com! Please check it out and let me know what you think!

Again, thank you all for being such a big part of this. It really is through people like you that my business gets the majority of it's business. I'm so thankful for you all!!

Here's a little peek.

Great Gatsby!!

I was so sure I had blogged about this piece months ago but apparently NOT! Life has been busy busy. My husband and I downsized and moved into a smaller house, I've been helping my mom with yard sales galore and so much more! I still feel like I'm moving in nearly two months later but I guess that's the way it goes. I need to go through my stuff desperately and have a yard sale soon.

Anyway, this cabinet. I saw it at Goodwill one day, in the back as the door was closing behind an employee. I stalked this piece for 5 days until I finally just asked if someone would bring it out. Then I bought it on the spot! I knew this was a special piece. I honestly didn't have a clue what I was going to do with it but I knew I had to have it. Two weeks passed before I had my epiphany. I had been thinking I'd just paint it white and distress it. It's really hard to go wrong with that but it just didn't feel right for this one. It needed to be the center of attention. It was special! Then BAM! I realized!! Roaring 20's baby! And boy does it fit! Hand painting the gold and silver accents was painstaking but it turned out so amazing! I loved it so much I nearly decided to change my whole home decor to Art Deco!

So here it is before, already gutted for me.

And here we are after! I saw a dry bar but it could be used for any sort of storage and display.

Gorgeous, right!! It's for sale, too! Go to Facebook.com/ThePaintedCottageSC and send me a message if you're interested!

Broken coffee table into cocktail ottoman!

Well...I'm just tickled about how well this turned out. When I went to the store to get everything I needed to transform this broken table into an ottoman I had a completely different idea in my head. I had planned to paint the frame white and distress it with a map fabric on the cushion. Instead I came home with a spa blue damask fabric and ivory paint...and I didn't distress it. I'm in love! If it doesn't sell quickly I may end up keeping it!

Here is the not so lovely before.

Not only had the glass been broken but the X bars had been destroyed. I considered repairing them but why make life difficult? They would have been too brittle and I don't want a piece breaking in a client's house. That's just bad business. So I removed them and sawed off the pegs that they attached to. I painted the whole thing in Madison Avenue by Valspar and then added a cushion top with the GORGEOUS spa blue damask fabric I found at Joann's. I have so much left I'm seriously considering reupholstering my dining chairs with it. I don't care for the current fabric and I just love this SO MUCH! My set is black, though, so I need to put them together to really see how it looks. Anyway, here are the after pictures! She's for sale!!

Isn't she gorgeous!? And comfy, too! That's 3 inch foam!

Happy Spring!

Well I'm back. I've not been lost in the winter void...or was I? OK, maybe I was a little. I have a few makeovers to show you today and hopefully you'll like at least one of them. ;p

Alright, so I guess I'll go backwards because that's how my memory is working today. This desk was neglected. Oh so neglected. It was covered in mold and was grimy and gross. The poor woman that owns it had sanded her heart out to try to get rid of the mold but all she needed to do was call me. Well, she did, but not before she wore her arms out, I'm sure. It just needed a litle TSP...or A LOT of TSP and A LOT of paper towels. Cleaning pieces is not my favorite part. Here is the before picture of the poor thing.

Some of the not white parts you see is wood grain but most of it, folks, is grimy white. Yeah...it was kinda bad. So she decided she wanted a Chinoiserie style and that's what I did. I painted the whole thing red, then black on top and distressed so that the red showed through. The hardware, which is obviously not shown, was painted gold. Now I do not normally like gold anything but it really popped against the black and I'm quite fond of how this desk turned out. Of course, I'm biased I suppose. I did paint the thing.

The pictures aren't great. It was too sunny, I think (aww, for shame). Great for painting, not for taking pictures. Anyway, you get the feel for it!

Let's see, this next one is pretty straight forward. We have a plain cedar chest and a side table. The side table had been painted previously and even looked like it had been antiqued but it looked more like a lot of stuff had been spilled on it and didn't get cleaned from the crevices. Yeesh...it looks much better after. She just wanted a clean, simple yellow for both.

OK, this last one was some work. I should have known better but apparently I didn't. It is a mahogany vanity. What does mahogany do? It bleeds. It bleeds like no other piece of furniture has bled before in the history of furniture. So I painted it white, la di da. I come back an hour later and the whole thing is pink. I go about things the stubborn and hard way and paint it white again. There, that should do it. Nope...it's just a little less pink. Oooooookkkkkk, fiiiiiiiiiine! I guess I'll get in my car and trek five whole miles to Lowes to get some shellac...what a burden!! So I do and then I shellac it, and then I paint it white. Lord knows it was better but gosh dang it if there weren't a few places with a delicate shade of pink. So I shellac it again....paint it white....again........and then put the poly on. OK, finally, it's white. The whole thing....Oh, and I gave it a new cushion and upholstery job. :) OK OK, here is the before and after.

I antiqued it a little bit to bring out the details which were lovely.

That's all folks! Now that I'm back in the game I'll be posting much more regularly. Hopefully weekly if business gets good! See you soon!

A wedding gift

My brother-in-law and a good friend of mine got married this past Friday. My friend had been talking about wanting a new dining set because the one she had was pub height and she didn't feel it worked for their space. I knew then that that is what I wanted to get for their wedding gift! I was super excited because their taste is electic so I could have a lot of fun with it. I decided on an Alice in Wonderland type theme and went to town. This is what I started out with.

And

Just a plain old oak table and some chairs that actually came from a different set.

So I wanted the table to have black and white stripes and then I got a lazy susan to paint checkered. The stripes weren't too bad but let me tell you, you'd better want those checkers if you're going to start because it is painstaking! Tape and cut and touch up, and touch up again! But it turned out awesome and they love it. That makes it all worth it!

Here are a few pictures of the process.

As you can see when I pulled the tape up it also pulled up some paint so don't worry that you're not perfect because it can always be touched up!! It's still frustrating, though. After I finished all this up I antiqued it with black paint and the dry brush method and them saturated it in poly! I wanted this baby smooooooth. The chairs were easy. I just painted them black and poly'd them and voila!

Pretty cool, right? I think it might be my favorite I've done so far!

Vintage Americana

I've got some catching up to do and I've got so much to show you that I'm going to turn this into two posts. First off I have a three piece Dixie set. It's been sitting around for a while because 1. I had originally planned on taking it with me to the fair I did in September but when I got around to moving it into place to paint I realized that I'm stupid for thinking I could take the long MASSIVE dresser on a road trip. Secondly, I couldn't really decide how to paint it. I was going to settle for a distressed white for the fair but that obviously didn't work out. I'm so glad I waited, though, because I got a buyer! She was wanting to put it in her boys' room but didn't know what color to paint them. She told me what the theme was, Americana/vintage sports so I suggested an antiqued red. She liked the idea and off I went to paint. I haven't done any red pieces up to this point so I was really excited and also a bit nervous, but they turned out really wonderful! Sometimes I want to keep pieces for myself, or in this case for my husband. He loves red. So anyhoosers, here are the before pics.

I painted them red and was going to glaze them with antiquing glaze but got a message from her saying they'd had a death in the family and a bunch of family would be in their home. Her boys had no storage for clothes so she wanted to see if I'd finished them. I hadn't and glaze takes a week to cure. I really try to accomadate my clients as best as I can so I spent that day (Saturday) finishing them up. Instead of glazing I used black paint and a dry brush technique. It's a little more tricky than glaze because it's not as easily workable but I wanted her to have these dressers. She had enough to deal with and the less she had to worry about the better. After it all dried I applied polycrylic in semi-gloss (I've been using Satin but I'm switching to semi-gloss. It just looks nicer to me.). Her husband picked it up that same night, in the dark. Poor guy. He didn't even get to see them before he took them home! She sent me a text a little later saying she loved them. I can't even describe how relieved I am to hear that my clients love what I've done. I get so nervous they're going to hate it!

Ok, so enough talking already, right? Here are the afters!

I had actually forgotten I had the mirror to go with it so they got a free mirror! What do you think? It's bright but I think it's going to look perfect in her boys' room!