Tinted Lampshades and a Bookcase Makeover

 It all started with the bookcase, which had a domino

effect that spilled over to this project: tinting lampshades.

I think I had about 6 projects going at the same time yesterday,

but this one is soooo easy, you may want to try it for yourself

for an instant lift to your decor.  These lampshades are old shades

that came off of an expensive antique chandelier from a brownstone

in Boston's upper crusty Back Bay.  I was keeping my fingers crossed

that they were in good enough shape to dye.  Sometimes fragile fabric

can fall apart from the weight of the water, so beware.  I had one extra 

shade to practice on, so I could keep them white if it failed.

Most of you will probably tint newer shades, so lets get on with 

the how tos of tinting your shades.

 Its super easy to tint or dye fabric lampshades.  

I took an inexpensive chip brush

and dipped it into my can of Duck Egg Chalk Paint by Annie Sloan. 

The chip brush is used because it doesn't hold a lot of paint/water.

I placed the loaded paint brush into this pyrex mixing cup and added about 

a 1/4 cup of water and stirred it using the brush until it was all dissolved

and I had a lovely watercolored batch in this pretty shade of greeny blue.

Then using the chip brush, I just held the lampshade over the sink and stroked

the exterior of the shade with the paint brush and rotated it and kept 

stroking paint over the outside until it was all covered.  

Then I set them on a folded paper towel to dry.  The watery paint

mix settled at the bottom and the excess was absorbed by the towels.

 This is where my project day began, right here in the living room

Ever since I moved the blue opaline chandelier into the living room

I wanted to change the color of the back of the bookcases from grey to 

a color that would echo the color in the chandelier.  It couldn't be as 

brilliant as the opaline, so I thought I would experiment with Annie's

Duck Egg.  Her colors have a sophistication about them, and this color is

a beautiful vintage robin's egg color that might be perfect.  And it was!

You can see the left side is original grey, Paris Grey in fact, and the 

right is the Duck Egg.  Hubby's hockey gear is in front of the fireplace

as it was getting warmed up before he was heading out to play.

Real life stuff.  Anyway, I also wanted to try to make my bookcases

a little bit more coordinated, so as I painted all the contents got removed.

I would "shop" my own stuff to reconfigure the cases for a prettier look.

The paint is still drying, on both the bookcases and the sconce shades.

I test drove the shade and I loved it!!  Now all I had to do was figure out

how I was going to put things back, what to edit and what to keep.

 Books belong in bookcases but they can look messy and busy.

I had family photos and some small pieces of artwork that I wanted

to use in addition to my book collection.

I found that color coordinating the book jackets seemed to do the 

trick, and the result was soft and pretty. 

 The Duck Egg Chalk Paint

tied the whole room together and the coordinating shades 

were the little cherries on the top!

I made a few other changes in this room 

and will be back when those are ready to share.  

My blog friend, artist Cindy Austin, tinted her lampshades

 with Chalk Paint too.  Really pretty, right?

Read more »

Pink Polka Dotted Washer and Dryer

 You can't run out to Sears and buy this set...but you can create it 

if you wanted to update your own old washer and dryer.  Its easy with 

Chalk Paint by Annie Sloan.  One of our favorite Maison Decor customers

paints furniture for a living.  Like many of our customers, Melissa is a mom

who has discovered how easy and reliable Chalk Paint is to use on furniture

makeovers.  She has built a nice business for herself painting furniture

and selling it from her home.  She and her hubby and four kids recently moved

into a new house and Melissa was doing a makeover on her laundry room.

She found her inspiration in a polka dotted pig wall decoration from HomeGoods.

From there the room got a chandelier, an ironing board shelf,

and a hot pink color palette.

 Here it is in the beginning of the makeover, the pink polka dotted

suitcase and shelf looked really cute with the pig on the wall....

but what could she do about her washer and dryer?  I saw this photo

posted on her Facebook Page, Melissa's Perfect Piece.  She said she wished

she could run out and buy a pair of shiny stainless steel front loaders.

I suggested she paint them pink with polka dots too.  And knowing her

like I do, I was thinking she probably would consider doing just that.

 And so, the washer dryers in hot pink with white polka dots were a reality!

Melissa mixed up Emperor's Silk (red) and Old White Chalk Paint to get

 a bubblegum pink color.  She finished off the job with a polka dot stencil.

Now its the cutest laundry room in Massachusetts!

 Her youngest, Madeline, gave her mom her approval on a job well done! 
Isn't it just the most whimsical thing you could imagine doing 
to your appliances?  Chalk Paint sticks to 

metal and so painting your appliances is always an option.
  Let it cure to get nice and hard and consider sealing it with
 a polycrylic or clear finish top coat product so it can be almost bullet proof.

Don't use Annie Sloan's soft wax to seal these, as the heat from the dryer 
would soften the wax so it couldn't cure.  If you need to touch them up,
 its easy enough to do so.  I would keep a custom paint color mix inside 
a baby food jar, or other small airtight container, 
just in case you need to retouch little marks.    

 You might remember that I recently got some new French Provincial chairs 
for my dining room.  I saw this photo posted on Melissa's Facebook page.  
That day they became mine! It was the day before Thanksgiving 
and I wanted some new chairs.  

Here they are, straight from a small business mom, Melissa, 
who does all this from her home while being a mom to four kids! Phew! 
And I thought having a shop was kind of hard work.  
Hope you enjoyed this post on just another amazing thing that 

Chalk Paint can do.  It really is that good, that amazing,
 and that reliable. Find out why everyone is going crazy 
over Annie's paint, and create some magic of your own!

If you don't think you are brave enough to paint a washer or dryer, 

rethink painting things, like this basic side table. Done in Old White 

Chalk Paint, we finished them using a stencil for the top in a houndstooth

check and then handpainted stripes on the front drawer.  

Makes for an interesting Menswear look, don't you think?

Read more »

Dining Room Makeover and Thanksgiving Day

Our dining room has been undergoing a few cosmetic changes in the 

past few weeks.  It all started with getting the enormous purple turkey

platter to add to my transferware collection.  I decided to take down the

mirror in the dining room and put more of my transferware on the wall.

After the purple was added, the blue opaline chandelier clashed, so I 

decided to finally hang up a different antique chandelier I had been hanging

onto for over a year.  "Not for sale" was the tag on it, as I used it in my shop

for adding ambience.  I planned to hang it someday, but didn't know where.

Do you buy things because you love them, and then hold onto them until

the perfect place presents itself it? On occasion I do, particularly with antique

chandeliers.  We will move one day, and when we do, I will pull an Ernest Hemingway's

wife move, where she took down all his ceiling fans in his Key West house and installed

her antique French chandelier collection while Ernest was off on a fishing trip.

But I digress...So gone was the beautiful blue next to the dramatic purple, and 

the room was feeling better to my eyes.  Purple is a tricky color to use in 

home interiors, too much is too much!! Purple plates on the wall feel just about 

right.  I may be adding a purple damask, toile or checkered roman shade or swedish

shade in the windows, but thats about it for adding more purple.

Sylvia and Tobey always run into the room when I start snapping 

photos.  Everytime. Finally they get bored and toddle off. So you may

see bits and pieces of them in these shots.  Dillon is too mature to care 

about trying to get into any photos on the blog.  So while I was switching out

chandeliers, (or should I say Mr. Maison Decor was doing that), I was

also happily working in my new vintage French Settee for seating.

But after I added that, I hated the chairs I had. They were too low in

profile and didn't feel balanced opposite the taller cane back settee.

See what I mean?  One chair was being painted, but since I wasn't

feeling it, the rest stayed in their natural state until I could get excited 

about keeping them.  And so the day before Thanksgiving I saw a post 

in Facebook by one of my customers who paints furniture with our 

Chalk Paint.  She was selling a set of 6 French Provincial cane back chairs!

I sent her a private message on Facebook, and in 3 hours her hubby was

delivering them into my house!  Hehehe...yes a LOT of planning was 

involved. NOT.  I just knew I would love them, so I bought them, and I was

also happy to do business with another small business owner, who happened

to be a good customer of my own shop.  Her business is called Melissa's Perfect Piece. 

Melissa paints furniture with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint, 

and sells from her home and markets her furniture 

on Facebook if you want to look her up.

So I had my FP cane back chairs to go with my French settee I bought

from another small business guy, designer/stylist Matthew Mead.

But Thanksgiving was next up, and so I pushed the settee in front 

of the backyard window, and used all of my chairs for the 8 or 9

we had coming over for dinner.  I was already plotting on the new

floor plan after this holiday was in the books.

This morning I had Mr. MD help me remove the extra table leaf

and then switch the settee and the chairs around.  I took the solid 

cherry chairs to my shop where they are now for sale.

 I love this settee! And my purple plates!

I put two big linen pillows and one small 

quilted purple velvet pillow on the settee.

There was one other thing I did the day before Thanksgiving...

It involved breaking out my Annie Sloan paint....

I couldn't have the library/office cabinet stay 

that soft blue color anymore...it had to go!

So French Linen to the rescue. I am still in the process of deciding what

else I want to do to it, but I like the darker grey in the mix.

And it all started because of a Turkey plate and a French settee....

I never got a family photo taken during the holiday.

But we had a great time, and hope you did too!

 One last thing...I like having some greenery in this room.

So there are various urns and containers carrying plants 

and orbs with lights.  I may have just the perfect French bistro

side table to put here to hold them all...

 If I can squeeze it in and it looks right, I will show you next time.

But its time to move onto Christmas decorating isn't it?

Looking forward to decorating a little bit more with naturals

this year, and some sparkle of course. Thanks for reading the blog,

its fun writing it, and I get a kick out of having some of my 

blog readers come by the shop to say hi, some of them

from across the country, like yesterday!  So this is a special

hello to Yolanda and her awesome husband and daughter

from Indiana.  You guys rock!!

Read more »

Painted Chair: Fabric and Frame, French Style!

Looks like a Duck Egg Blue chair with leather upholstery

and a bit of gilding on the same tone frame.

But it didn't always look like this!

 The chair was circa 1980 or so...perfectly

nice, but dated floral fabric and peachy wood tone.

 Go ahead and paint both the fabric and the frame.

 This polished cotton fabric was a breeze to paint.

First you mist your fabric with a bottle sprayer using water.

Then dip brush into water then right into paint can and spread onto

the fabric.  The mixture will be too light to usually cover in one coat.

Let it dry, then follow up again with the water and the paint on a second coat.

This way the paint will not be too heavy to cause cracking on the paint.

 You can see the faint pattern of the floral design through the one coat of paint.

This is the chair after the second coat of paint. 

I finished it by sanding it lightly with 500 grit paper over the 

dried painted fabric.  This will make it smooth to the touch.

Afterwards I waxed it with a 50/50 mix of mineral spirits and

Annie Sloan's Clear Soft Wax.  Mix it up til its nice and smushy and 

then spread around the fabric with a wax brush. Wipe off any excess.

If you want to add gilding wax, now is the time.

Add gilding wax like I did here, using King Gold Gilding Wax

for a lovely gilded look.  

Voila! 

You have a brand new chair with a beautiful new look!

Read more »

Our Inspiration Wall: Chalk Art and Gilded Frames

Our shop in Reading has a lot of painted and embellished

sample boards that we have made over time using different

products.  Many are Chalk Paint sample boards, and then

there are those that we have used more decorative techniques

by adding combinations of pearlescent,

 gilded, crackled and transfer mediums.

I noticed it was hard for shoppers to figure out what they were looking

at, so I came up with the idea of grouping samples together

inside of vintage gilded frames.  I had been purchasing old gilded

frames at auction. Most had ugly artwork or broken bits so I was 

able to get a good deal on them.  Colin cut out backing boards out of 

luann board and painted them with traditional chalkboard black paint.

He mounted the boards inside the frames and they looked stunning!

I could have just put them in the shop and sold them like that,

and maybe I will now that we have our inspiration wall finished,

After the boards were put in the frames I laid out groupings of samples

and Justin got to work creating his magical Chalk Art fonts.

He does it all freehand, and will look at various fonts online for ideas.

You can see how he starts off by spacing the letters with simple stick lettering.

Then he starts getting creative, which is when the magic happens!

He is working in the back room where we hold our workshops.

During the week we usually have various projects in different states

of progression on the table.  You can see the other boards in the back, as well

as a simple sample board I am doing using an 

Efex molding for an upcoming class.

More on that at the end of the post.

AFter he got his lettering all finished, Justin glued down our samples.

This board is meant to show what finishes you will learn when you 

take our popular Chalk Paint® Introductory Workshop.

I love this frame, by the way! Look at the moldings on this baby!

We had a few boards made up showing off the Artisan Enhancement line that we carry.

There are many different decorative things you can do with this line, including

various crackling techniques, image transfers, foiling, stone finish and pearlized finishes.

Now when you come in to get inspiration we hope our boards inspire

in a more obvious way!

How wonderful were those incredible antique frames?

You can easily add embellishing appliques to any frame to get

a similar look to a vintage plaster over wood or carved frame

by using a combination of Efex moldings onto a simple frame.

I am working on different boards using our new Efex latex molding line

we carry in house and online.  This one is a very fine detailed ribbon

applique. You can see a pencil tracing mark around it. When you apply

the applique, you just roughly trace around your piece, then apply the contact cement

to the board and the back of the piece, wait 20 minutes, then stick together and press

down to make good contact.  The tracing line just helps you see where

to put the cement, and where to stick your applique.

Then after about a half hour you can paint right over it.

I am using French Linen Chalk Paint by Annie Sloan.

Push the paint into all the crevices of the molding and then 

brush them out so there is no globbing.

I finished it off with a wash to get this lovely Gustavian look.

You can see all kinds of moldings from the Efex line in our shop

as well as online.  Imagine taking a flat panel door on a cabinet or a closet

and creating an antique French looking vibe! 

Or make fancy frames for your own fabulous chalk board to hang

in your kitchen or dining room!

You can join us at a new Applique and Molding Workshop,

coming up next month! We will be making a wall plaque using the Efex

moldings and decorative paint finishes.  You will see how easy it is to 

plan a project with Efex latex moldings. You will lay it out, cut, glue and paint 

and up with stunning results!

Rounding out the week finds me wearing my designer hat.

Today I will be styling a clients home. 

Did you know I am also a HomeGoods Designer?

 I am part of a hand full of national designers in the HomeGoods 

Happy by Design Pinterest program!

Four carriages and two rolling flat bed carts were filled 

for this exciting home styling project.

I will be sharing the finished results soon.

Read more »