Bonjour mes amis!  I hope everyone had a lovely weekend and didn’t get dumped on by a whole bunch of snow, like I know so many of you have!  I hate to say it, but it has been in the 60’s, sunny and gorgeous here in NorCal.  But….we don’t live here cheap, so all of you with big pieces of land, beautiful Fall colors, and a magical white winter  snow-scape , just remember, my neighbors only live about 20 feet from me.

Which means they get an eyeful of my eyesore of a garage.  I am working on it!  Just this week Emma and I cleared out quite a few things that have been clogging up the work que.  To start with, I got this table from my daughter Rachel’s dance teacher, about 3 years ago……and this nightstand from a garage sale, for $5, about a year ago.  Here is the table before, and use your mind’s eye for the before of the nightstand.  Whoops!  I did it again! (sorry Brittney fans).  I forgot to take the before picture!  It was icky white, spray painted, over an egg yolk yellow, with a crackle finish ALL OVER.  Yikes.

Here is where we ended up.  I got a wild hair (like my pink hair) to mix a few CeCe Colors with some leftover Sherwin Williams and Modern Masters whites I had.  This is what I came up with.  About 3 parts Antique White of two latex paints, 2 parts CeCe Memphis Blue, and a Splash of CeCe Pickerington Violet (which is an oh si magnifique and delicate color).  We base coated both pieces with my favorite basecoat, CeCe’s Virginia Chestnut. and topped with my custom color.  Finished with a light sand of 320 grit and CeCe Clear Wax.

If you have seen my posts on How to Make Anything look like real wood, then you will appreciate this cheater method I created.  Nothing will replace the layers of glaze and colorant to make something actually look like wood, like this:

But this is a quick finish you can give to sort of give the illusion of wood.  CeCe Caldwell’s Virginia Chestnut, then dry brush with a big chip brush Modern Masters Coffee Bean Colorant on.  Seal with CeCe’s clear wax, or Satin Finish. I discovered this when I redid my built-in bookshelf in my bedroom, (which was CORAL) and nothing else in my room was (CORAL), and I chose a really orange (CORAL) for no reason whatsoever.  I don’t recommend doing this to a built-in.  Anywho, the bookshelf looks lovely and distinguished now.

You can read about that technique HERE and another example HERE.

What were we talking about?  Oh yeah, the table and nightstand. And! the little wood crate I have in the nightstand is one of my last three of the wood crates I found in the dumpster last year.

So happy the way it all came together.

That about sums it up. Finis.

These projects and my faux Frenchiness will be visiting at these lovely parties this week:

Monday:

Wednesday:

Thursday: