Shabby Chic

I have to be perfectly honest. I have never been a fan of the shabby chic look. So many people love it. It's VERY popular but it's just not for me. I work way too hard painting coat after coat of nice expensive paint, to destroy it all with a sander. I have avoided being asked to do it....until now. I bought a piece of furniture from a lady recently and when they brought it to me, she saw that I paint furniture. She ended up buying this Duck Egg Blue & Old White dresser and nightstand combo from me. 

She had a desk that she bought for her daughter that was extremely shabby chic. She loved the way it looked but she needed it to be Duck Egg Blue too.

She wanted it more white than blue, just the opposite of the furniture above. She also wanted it really distressed. I used chemical stripper (poison in a bottle) and started taking off the 10 layers of paint that were on it. After I stripped a few layers, I realized that I needed to keep some of the paint on it, so I could complete this project. She also brought me this plain old mirror to paint. I added the wooden design in the middle to fancy it up a bit. Here it is after and I must say, I love it. It reminds me of something I have seen in a Ballard Design catalog.

A New Favorite Color

I think every time I go to buy paint, I fall in love with a new color. I recently went to buy one quart of Coco and one quart of Old Ochre. I've been using Annie Sloan Chalk Paint for a year now and I have used most of her colors. Old Ochre was one I never bought though. Well, I'm smitten! I bought an old dresser a while back and I was inspired to paint it with these two colors. I think it turned out amazing!!

Pretty in Pink

I got a super good deal on some amazing furniture back in September. These two pieces are solid oak. Everything about them is solid. Even the inside of the drawers are solid oak. I never get this lucky. The dresser is small and has a beautiful mirror with it so I wanted to paint it pink. I want it to go in some very lucky little girl's room. It's truly a piece that can be handed down for years to come because it's made so well.

French Linen Transformation

I bought this dresser a couple months ago. A friend of mine saw it at a thrift store and texted me to see if I wanted it. The price wasn't great but she said it was solid wood and all the drawers worked, which is a huge bonus. I told her to bring it on.

When I finally had time to work on it, I realized it sucked! The drawers were pretty much all messed up and I would have to replace the drawer slide and glide on all but two. I texted my friend and asked if she wanted it back and she said no. I decided to keep the bottom two drawers in it because they were fine. The other drawers went up for sale and someone bought them all for $20. Now I didn't have as much money tied up in this thing. I was so frustrated that I took my mallet and starting knocking the crap out of it. I removed all of its guts and kept just the body.

My husband put birch plywood inside to build one giant shelf. We nailed on a 1x3 to cover up that dental molding on top. I bought a decorative piece of scrollwork from Lowes and glued it in the center of that board. We put molding on the inside to frame out the new shelf and molding on the outside to frame out the front and cover up the sides of the plywood.

I spent hours sanding the top down so I could stain and refinish it but the top was so bad it didn't work. I ended up painting the whole thing a mixture of Chateau Grey and Versailles. Then I put two coats of French linen on top. I replaced the hardware on the drawers. Then I waxed the outside with dark wax. I sanded down the top after I was done as an experiment and it looks pretty good. I figured it would look great as a buffet, sofa table, bookcase, in a mudroom or anywhere else. It's a great piece of furniture.

Before & After

Times Square

Since we were staying on 44th Street between 5th and 6th Avenue, we weren't very far from Times Square. So at night if we got bored, we would mosey on over there where there is always something exciting going on.
We went to Dave and Busters Monday night and the guys played some games.
Then for dinner we went to the Hard Rock Cafe. I normally don't go to them when I'm out of town for dinner but we figured it was close and we thought it would be good. It was close but not so good. There was a lot of Beatles memorabilia there to look at while we waited.
On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at Crumbs for a dozen mini cupcakes. My favorite was the one with the nonpareils. They are so good!!

very yummy cupcakes from Crumbs Bake Shop

This is me with Paul McCartney's outfit from when they first came to America. Love it!

Brooklyn Bridge

One item on my bucket list was to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. Well, I can check it off now. After all of the walking we have been doing I have to admit that walking 1.3 miles across it wasn't high on our priority list. Monday morning we took the subway to Brookyln and grabbed some breakfast at Cranberry's. It was the tiniest little place but they had really good breakfast and they were super nice. Then we began our trek over to the bridge and began our hike. Honestly, 1.3 miles wasn't bad at all. There were several places to stop and rest, and most importantly to take photos of the breathtaking views of NYC. We stopped along the way and bought some artwork too. I asked the artist if I could take his photo and he was tickled and said yes. I'll post pictures of the artwork after we get them framed. I really wish I had his name or contact information because I would love to have some more of his pictures. They were amazing!

After our walk, we were famished so we headed toward Little Italy. Of course Peyton had to stop and get a hot dog before lunch. We took some pictures along the way of different buildings downtown.
We went to Little Italy and ate pizza at Lombardi's. Then we walked around SoHo and did some window shopping. Peyton bought some mini-cupcakes and ate them in about 5 seconds.
Then we headed back to the subway to go to our hotel, for a much needed nap.

Staten Island Ferry & The Intrepid

After our visit to the 9/11 Memorial, we walked to the Staten Island Ferry. We thought about going out to the Statue of Liberty but we didn't want to be gone that long. After the ferry ride, we headed up to take pictures with the famous bull. Then we made our way back to the subway.

We took it up to Times Square at 42nd street and then we decided to head in over to The Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum. Yes, we were all exhausted. We had to walk from 42nd and 7th all the way to 49th and 12th Avenue. It was a very long walk. It was cold and raining on top of that.
The Intrepid was really nice though. There were some really neat planes and a lot of great history to learn.