Transforming a brass bed

This is a fabulous brass bed that is undergoing a makeover with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. The bed will be painted in Pure White, with the wonderful flower details accented in Provence.

We are deciding how to paint the flower details. Here is a photo of the whole bed (this is the footboard), which has been painted in Pure White (but do you see the brass peeping out of the top left post -- found some scotch tape that sneaked its way through my cleaning/prep work, and need to get that off and repaint it).

the footboard & testing out the various ways to paint the flowers

As you look at the bottom row of flowers, you will see that the first 6 have been painted Provence, and then I have applied a layer of Pure White, and then gently wiped it off so that the Provence shows through. There is variation within and among the flowers, which makes it unique.

Moving to the right side of the bottom row of flower, the last three are painted in Provence, but do not have the Pure White wash. Which do you like better? Take a look at the zooms below:

Provence with White Wash

Straight-up Provence

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Owl Silhouette Project

The animal of the moment for Au is the owl. This summer she has devoured Kathryn Lasky's fiction series The Guardians of Ga'hoole . Au selected the species for the project based on their characteristic sizes and profiles. I created silhouettes in Adobe Illustrator based on the photographs Au found at owlpages.com . Next we will print and frame them for her room.

Navy Bed

Painting in blue is something that I haven't done much of, so when a client was interested in painting her son's vintage white bed in navy blue, it was really a great opportunity. Annie Sloan's Napoleonic Blue wasn't quite dark enough for the room decor, so we chose to finish the piece with a generous helping of Annie Sloan's Dark Wax. I preceded this step with a layer of Clear Wax (and let it dry overnight) because I always want to have max manipulation when it comes to the dark wax application. This pictures shows the difference between clear and dark waxes. The paint, followed by the dark wax to achieve navy blue, also created depth and movement in the painted surface. A single navy blue paint color wouldn't bring that style!

Yankee Doodle Re-Do

If you were a boy of the 70s growing up in New England, this piece may bring back fond memories of playing with your Lite Brite or He-Man, splayed out on the shag carpet in your den: I donated this fixer-upper to the Junior League of Washington's "tossed and found" charity sale last month. A massive cleanup, repaint with an Annie Sloan grey mix (leftover Paris Grey, French Linen, and Pure White) and reupholstery with fresh modern home decor fabric gave this toy bench a complete new look. So cute. Another of those projects the girls are sad to see go. Who knows, maybe we'll run across another Yankee toy box some day.

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