Closer To Fine

Yep. That's me this week. Closer to fine.  I'm powering through the heat and counting my blessings!

I made this sign to surprise my sister, Laurie who recently bought a cottage near Lake Michigan. I've been helping her paint some furniture and stage the place so she can rent it out.  Her son named the place, "Closer to Fine", which I thought was so perfectly fitting for this cute and calm-evoking cottage. Can't wait to show you pictures once we have it "closer to fine". :)

Chumps, I'm not usually one to complain...(oh wait, who am I kidding)? Yes, I am one to complain, but this heat is killing me!  I resorted to hauling my client's furniture into my living room this week instead of my garage/workshop because there is no way that paint, (or my sweat) ever would've dried!

I don't have pics of this week's projects but here's a sampling of last week's:

This is a coffee table that my sis, Lo recently purchased for her cottage to use as a t.v. stand.  She let me do whatever I wanted to it. Yeah! So, I sanded it down, didn't even prime it because I knew I wanted it rustic looking. I used a light beachy blue on the legs and a buff color on the top. I then hand scraped the paint off some spots and distressed it all over.  I finished it off with an overall light stain/glaze.

Here's the AFTER:

And another piece that lacked charm until paint was slapped on it:

Oops! Flip Flopped those around!  The before is unfinished honey color, the after-chocolate brown.

BEFORE

This end table with matching coffee table was dropped off last week by a client who had sent me pics of a farm style dining room table taken from a blog she had seen. She asked me if I could try to get that same look on these tables even though they didn't have planked tops. I told her that I couldn't promise anything but that I'd try.

Kinda time-consuming, but oh-so-rewarding! I couldn't just sand off the black...it was stuck like glue. I resorted to using a paint stripper, which was messy but did the trick.

She and I were pretty pleased with the end product.  Such a different look for her living room. Here's the coffee table. Same deal.

BEFORE

For the top, I actually dry brushed some neutral colored (light tan) paint over certain spots so that when I stained the top, it wouldn't soak right in and pull the honey color through that the table originally had. This gave it some contrasting depth of color.  To finish it off with a protective coat, I used a minwax light colored stain.

I liked the look so much that I thought I'd give it a whirl on the dining table I purchased from an estate sale last month:

BEFORE:

It actually looks a bit better than this now. I loved the new charcoal colored paint on the legs but it was a flat finish. Tonight, I covered the legs with the minwax stain and it looks finished and glazed. Didn't get a chance to take a pic. of that yet. This baby will be headed to my booth next month, but if you want it before I take it there, FB message or email me.

BEFORE

Had to leave you with this bright spot of my week.  Please no hazing my cake decorating skills, but I made this cake for the three LeBlanc (my side) cousins that celebrate summer b-days each year together. Top left is T.J who just turned 12. Middle is our oldest nephew Alex, who just turned 17 and bottom right is Kennedy (my oldest) who just turned 14. 

AFTER

Here they are posing like they did in their pics when they were not even ONE!

Time sure flies by when you're having fun!

And in honor of all these birthdays, here's your quote for the day:

That's for sure! Stay cool chumps!