Custom Painted Furniture etc

Part of our growing business here at Maison Decor is doing 

custom painted furniture for clients and decorators.

Colin is using one of our new Annie paint brushes and 

we love how nicely these brushes work and apply the paint.

Of  course we paint a LOT of furniture and in the course of 

doing so we have a couple of things to share with you.

 This is not a custom job~its a french bed that I bought 

as part of building a display area for the new Annie Sloan 

fabric collection.  This bed has seen better days 

and you see how yucky it looks~it needed a paint job

for sure! I imagine this bed to one day 

be in a girls bedroom~its so darling.

The footboard is curved and it was just the thing

 to hide the radiator in the front window.

I built a small dummy bed out of lightweight wood 

that would serve as the mattress.

 I decided to shellac the entire thing before we painted it 

because I felt it would probably end

up bleeding due to the discolored look of the finish.  

If you encounter bleed on a piece, which means

your lovely Chalk Paint finish is turning brown or streaky with pink~

STOP! 

Get the Zinsser Clear Shellac and apply a coat. 

It dries quickly then you can resume with your Chalk Paint finish.

 Colin came home to help as he often does on weekends to make a little

cash~and I set him to the task of bed painting!

The bed was looking soooo much better painted!

A pretty rose applique was added to the headboard~

I had given up trying to save the decal applique that was there.

This little detail would make the bed very girly and frenchy!

 The perfect touch to go with the new 

Annie Sloan Normandie Toile draperies and pillows.

 I also wallpapered the niche to add a little extra oomph~

this paper is another great example of what you can find at Lowes!

I am not sponsored by Lowes~I just stumbled across their limited but nice

selection last year and I love how elegant some of their damask papers are,

and how wonderful the prices are too.

 The window vignette is getting installed~

its always amazing at what a difference

custom draperies make in a space! 

This toile is a dusky lilac and it is very pretty.

Our bed~I need to add a fat puffy base and work on the bedding some

more, but here it is at this point. I painted a white and gilded mora

for the bedroom nook too~

and will soon have Mr. Maison Decor electrify the chandy.

I started out talking about our custom furniture painting services that we 

offer and this table base is an example.  A decorator referred her client to us 

with a brown wood  coffee table base.  They were looking for a way to update

their table to use it in their redecorating.  So it got a French Linen paint job

with a dry brush finish and then a touch of gilding~

Before

After

Its light and airy and elegant now!

One piece that is not custom is this large antique dresser.

 I begged Betsy to give me these numbers that

 she worked on for Miriam's chairs.

Since she had the No. 2 drafted and ready to 

go I used that on the second drawer 

for an embellishment.

I used chalk on the back of the paper

and then taped it to the drawfront and drew over the 

outline of the No. 2 leaving a chalk impression.

 Then I hand painted it with Old White Chalk Paint. 

After that I distressed it back to reveal some of the mahogany

finish and it came out like this~

It is a handsome piece~

 Another before and after with Chalk Paint

 is this danish cabinet that sold quickly.

It had a quirky look with some green stripes 

and then a black outline that looked like

giant eyebrows~

I hated how that looked...

I added an applique and did a coat of Old White Chalk Paint.

It needs to be finished~but you get the idea of how 

great furniture can look with the right paint job.

So if you are looking for a custom painter~

and you are in the Boston area, give Maison Decor a call!

 I have a rocking chair to do, a large dining room table 

and this latest piece~

a hope chest that will go from cutesy to

 elegant with a French Linen coating.

 Of course you can join me at one of my 

furniture finish workshops and give it a go for yourself!

Until then~

I'll be blogging and painting and trying to keep up!

linking my post to 

Mod Mix Monday at Nita's!

and showing off my wings at

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Old World Patina finish

 Before showing the Old World finish,
check out this table done with some color washing.

 A small formerly brown coffee table sat and sat in my store.

A customer decided to buy it as long as I would paint it to go with his other things~
so I was up to the task.

I used Chalk Paint® decorative paint by Annie Sloan
 in Old White with a wash 

of Duck Egg and Louis Blue in different areas.

 The other piece on the work bench is the

 Chippendale bench I had done in pastels~

it was time to rework it since it didn't sell.

 This got a wash of Duck Egg over the Old Ochre base~

 I wanted to use the Patina Gilding Paste over the carved areas.

 I also made a wash with King Gold gilding wax~

and combined together on top of the Duck Egg Chalk Paint

 it looked much like an antique from some French palace!~! Woohoo!

French Palace relic??

 Perhaps...*wink*

 Back in stock at the store and online

 is the popular Parisian Apartment clock~

 It also has the verdis-gris look much like the settee.

 We were so pleased to meet Justin's new GF last night~Madison!

She is very lovely and we had a great time together over dinner.

I know you guys haven't seen much of my house lately~so here we 

are in my kitchen (the one with the Chalk Paint on the cabinets)!!

Life goes on, with or without a store to run...and that includes having 

small dinner parties and trying to clean and cook.

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Ghost mirror, faded roses, and lilac toile

 Sometimes working at the store is just like decorating

your house~you play around with vignettes until you like the look.

Yesterday I did a lot of that...I have no official store hours on 

Saturdays at Maison Decor Malden, but often I am there the entire

day working on custom projects or reorganizing the store.

 I loved this collection created by Rosemary at Villabarnes 

called Faded Roses, so I arranged to have them at Maison Decor.  

They are lovely old bottles

with a faint image of pink roses~aren't they pretty set 

up in front of my ghost mirror?  

This mirror is so old, 

the type with lots of mercury in the glass...

and it gives a ghostly effect!  

 I am creating a bedroom vignette in the front window~so I wallpapered

the area yesterday morning in a cream and taupe paper 

to create a pretty backdrop for my Annie Sloan Normandie Toile! 

This toile is a dusky lilac with brown and cream 

figures in a pastoral setting. 

 Normandie is one of eight exclusive fabrics in

 the Annie Sloan collection. 

Its available only through Annie Sloan Retailers~

I will be making up lots of yummy pillows 

and other home dec accessories. 

 Custom orders are available as well. 

 Of course I am selling my custom painted Mora clocks too~

currently doing my first RED mora clock!

Normandie Toile by Annie Sloan™~

this fabric comes in an amazing width

at 108" wide!! 

Most fabrics are 54" wide....so this is awesome 

for bedding and extra full panels!

An antique full size bed was just the right size to tuck into 

the window space.  I built a dummy bed out of wood to fit over

a radiator that sits in that area.  Now I have to get a dust ruffle and 

duvet and loads of lovely pillows to make it look like a real bed!

You can see my worktable covered in a drop cloth in the pic...

the whole store was upside down yesterday as I went from project to 

project! I think I had three items being painted, I was cutting wallpaper,

cutting rods for the panels, cleaning the vintage chandelier....

well you get the picture!

 During the middle of all of this one of my local repeat customers, Mike, walked by my store and rapped on the door to come in...as soon as he spotted

the small Danish cabinet I was working on he was smitten.  I had just put one coat of Old White on it and was about to wallpaper the interior with the old floral wallpaper that was a gift from Krissie.  You can see how she wallpapered

her kitchen cabinet interiors! I thought it would be nice if papered this small cabinet and then it would find its way to live in a girls bedroom as a display for

her stuffed animals and dolls....but Mike wanted it for his kitchen cookbooks 

and other things...so now I will paint the interior Duck Egg blue for him and 

the English wallpaper will wait for another project~

 Yesterday we sold a few pieces of furniture 

including this Poem dresser

in a dusky lilac color called Paloma. 

It is one of the Chalk Paint™ colors by Annie Sloan. 

 It would go nicely with the Normandie Toile~

its almost an exact match.  

This Graphite chest sold to the same couple

 that bought the Poem dressers. 

Justin and I get excited when our painted creations sell~

then we get a chance to display other things

 waiting in the wings for their turn to hit the main floor!

You should see what our storage rooms look like...

today I am not going to think about the stores at all.

I have to clean the house and plan a dinner party 

on Tuesday night~we are having my parents, my sister and Justin

and his girlfriend over and there are 

mountains to be moved around here.

Until then~

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