Shabby Chic White Bedside Tables

Hello!

I hope you've been able to enjoy a relaxing weekend. The weather here in Sydney was beautiful once again. We spent time in working the garden and I did a lot of sewing - table cloths and cushions. We even had a kid-free evening on Saturday - a couple of hours anyway. One kid was at a party and the other went to friends' for dinner so Phil and I went to a little wine bar in Rozelle for a few mojitos and some bar food (although I must be getting old as I was shocked by the price of the drinks - $64 for the four mojitos. WTF?) I glad we don't go out drinking very often! But it was very nice to be out, just the two of us, in a different environment. I think time like that, even a couple of hours, keeps your marriage fresh, doesn't it? 

After drinks, we strolled along hand in hand to the little section of shops halfway between Rozelle and Balmain and checked out the windows of Malcolm's Antiques, No Chintz, Quintessential Duck Egg Blue etc. Beautiful stuff but expensive.  Shop rents are so very high around here, I'm not surprised that the stuff the shops are selling are expensive also... I recently looked at a little shop for lease near the kids school a while ago but they wanted $40,000 a year in rent and it's not even in a major shopping area - 4 little shops and a couple of cafes next to a small park so not much shopping traffic...and so I continue to just sell my stuff from home and the internet.

Last week I painted these two bedsides tables but I thought they were a bit plain. The gorgeous Sandy from Paint Me White was here at my house on Friday afternoon/evening so I asked what she thought and she said to distress them. So over the weekend I shabbied them up and I'm happy with them so they are now for sale.  They are well made and in good order. Three spacious drawers that are on timber runners.

By the way, have you read Mitch Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie - I read it a few years ago and really recommend it for a different perspective on life. Right up my alley.

Sandy was in Sydney for some work on Friday - she is so busy now with her new painting and shop ventures that I'm not sure how she is keeping it all together but she is doing so well. Phil came home on Friday night and said he was a bit scared when he walked in that she and I might have painted everything that didn't move in the house.  We just laughed and said, no we'd been chatting too much.  it was so good to spend some time with her. Love that woman!

I also spent some time painting some beautiful frames that I'm making into chalkboards and they'll be for sale soon. I have a lot of little things, old boxes, frames, hooks etc that I'll be selling soon, so if you are in the market for some pretty things stay tuned.

In the meantime do you know anyone who wants some shabby chic white bedside tables?

Fiona xx

Details:

Bedside tables - my parents, they were stained a dark mahogany colour

Primer: Zinsser waterbased Bullseye 123

Paint: Dulux Whisper White

Top Coat: Howards Wax n Feed

Jug: Ikea

Ampersand: Typo

Glass Lantern: The Works, Bed Bath n Table

Original Art work by John Downton

BTW The painting is a bit damaged as you can see by the photos, does anyone know how I can fix it - the canvas board got wet.

Our Garden in Autumn

Don't come here looking for beautiful autumn leaves and colour. Sydney has let go of summer very slowly this year. The leaves may not be beautiful but the days are still spectacular! I find that autumn is a great time to tidy and prepare the garden for the next growing season, so I'm getting stuck into it.

It certainly doesn't feel like late autumn in our garden. Check out the blue, blue skies.

There are a few leaves on the ground but our frangipani tree is still in bloom. I think this warm weather has it all confused.  I love this tree that bends over our backyard from the fence-line and provides a corner of shade in the heat of summer.

I spent a long time espaliering this lime tree and it sits very neatly along our side fence. Such a great way to save space in a small garden. Our lime tree has been abundant this year but our lemon tree suffered from scale very badly and is still recovering. I need to re-administer my father's remedy soon. There are a quite a few beautiful big lemons, but not as many as I would hope for. Fingers crossed for next year.

The iceberg roses are also still blooming. I was thinking of planting a few different rose bushes (some lush pink ones with the huge blooms?) but I will wait now until we renovate as I'm sure the backyard will get a bit damaged once the building is under way. We will finally remove the old fibro sheds - the question will be where to store all my French chairs and tools?

Our chickens are happy with a little rearrangement in their penned area. I love hearing their little clucks throughout the day. Although our white chicken, Cloud, is such a naughty character. We used to call her Houdini as she is very good at escaping. A few days ago she dug a hole under the fence and escaped into the back neighbours' yard. They have a huge dog, (that barks non stop and drives me a bit nuts!) but Cloud managed to escape the dog and jumped another fence to our other back neighbours , luckily they called out to me that our chicken was in their yard. They caught her and chucked her back over our fence and she is now happily back in her area with the hole under the fence all patched up! 

I get a lot of questions about how we keep our chickens - We currently have three - the black one is an Austrolorp, named Layla; the white is a White Leghorn named Cloud and the golden one is an Isa Brown named Bucket. All these breeds are very good consistent layers.  We don't have a fancy pen or anything flash - behind our sheds is a little corner that is fully contained by the fences and the old shed. It has a small opening that we have an old screen door we found on the side of the road that we use to access the area. We have a dirt ground and a netted roof. I have one small section that stays dry by using a piece of colorbond roofing and they have an old dog house (also found on the side of the road) and an old cupboard as shelter. They nest under an old Ikea plastic rocker that leans against the shed.  It was all low cost and simple to construct. There is plenty of room and they love the dirt underfoot to "bathe" in.

I love their eggs.

So fresh.

This weekend I'll be adding tidying up the garden bed under the frangipani tree by adding more soil and compost and planting lots of ranunculus and anemones bulbs.  Some work now for lots of blooms in springtime.

Do you keep chickens? Aren't they just the best! 

If you don't have chickens yet but are interested here is more on Why I keep backyard chickens.

Do you have a big garden - or a postage stamp like ours? I would love a massive garden but I really love living in the inner west and our street so it's probably never going to happen. In the mean time I just try and make our small garden as abundant and relaxing as possible.

My little slice of country life in the inner city suburbs.

Fiona xx

our garden in the Spring

Romantic Homes Magazine June 2013 - Lilyfield Life

Thanks for all the lovely feedback on my mirror - I shouldn't have been worried that you might not like that I painted cedar - I've already had so many offers to buy it but I am going to hold off for a while and have it at home, then I'll be selling it to Wendy who responded first. I will definitely be on the look out for another one.

I'm just popping in today quickly to let you know that I've had two nice things happen PR wise for my furniture and blog recently. 

Firstly my painted furniture was featured in the American magazine, Romantic Homes in the June 2013 edition. I haven't seen a copy yet but Sandy from Paint Me White sent me a photo. Sandy recently had one of her photos of her beautiful furniture grace the magazine cover!  Also in the magazine this month was Karen from Restyled Vintage so it's lovely to be sharing the lime-light with a friend.

Thank you to Beth Livesay for the inclusion. I am looking forward to seeing the magazine. I am really delighted and honoured to see my blog and furniture alongside that of other talented bloggers.

And thank you to all those people who have already contacted me saying they found out about my blog from the magazine. Welcome and I hope you enjoy it all.

I also made the Skinny Scoops Top 25 Home Décor blog list. I am very grateful for the nomination and those people who voted for me. I am not sure how many people were entered into the competition as I certainly don't think that Lilyfield Life blog rates that highly compared to a lot of other blogs but it's lovely to get recognition of my work. The extremely lovely and talented Ness from Marley & Lockyer took out top spot. Well deserved, Ness. 

By the way - the tablecloth in the magazine, the blue/grey striped one, is for sale here.

This morning I'm finishing off a cute rustic table and hopefully starting on the French dresser - I need help lifting the 1.8m of glass off it so couldn't start it yesterday.

cheers 

Fiona xx

French Paris Apartment mirror and a love of painting

Good morning my fellow painted furniture lovers!  At least I hope there is no one here who hates old wood being kissed by paint because you might be rolling your eyes at me today - I've been having fun painting old cedar but I really think it had to be done.

Do you like it?  This mirror was from an old dresser that I bought recently. I think it's very old fashioned to have the matching mirror over the dresser as a dressing table so I usually separate them and make the mirror a wall hung one and turn the dressing table into a chest of drawers. The mirror was VERY brown when I got it and I initially was thinking of painting it white but after my recent grey and white desk I thought I'd do the same again but this time age it with dark wax as well. 

I initially cleaned the mirror first with a brush as it was very dusty and then with a damp rag and some milk soap. Once it was clean and dry I painted the whole mirror timber trim in Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Paris Grey, I didn't tape the mirror off but just carefully painted around the edges and not worrying too much if some paint got on the glass as it's easy enough to remove.  With the darker colours of Annie Sloan Chalk paint you do not need two coats for good coverage - especially as I was planning on distressing and antiquing it anyway. Once the grey paint was dry I got out one of my thick water colour brushes and painted the ornately carved features that I wanted highlighted in Annie Sloan Chalk Paint Pure White. I found some lovely big watercolour brushes for about $3 each at Bunnings craft section. They are fantastic for this sort of detail on painted furniture.  They hold a good amount of paint but allow you to be reasonably precise.

I am showing you these close up so that you can see you don't need to be that neat for it to look good from normal viewing distance. Actually if it's perfectly neat it will just look like it's made in a factory somewhere in Asia, rather than lovingly hand painted.

After painting the trim I left it all to dry and cure for 24 hours. I have found that with the chalk paint that if you wax and distress it right away as soon as it dries a lot more paint comes off and I really didn't want this piece to be heavily distressed.  I applied the clear wax first and then got my wax brush and dappled on the Annie Sloan Dark wax making sure I got into all the crevices and only working on small sections at a time. Almost immediately after applying the dark wax, I used a clean rag and removed a lot of it so it stayed in the grooves and brush marks but not staining the paint.

I then sanded down the whole piece with my foam pad sander and distressed where I wanted it with a fine grit sand paper. It is now wonderfully smooth (as you know if you've been reading my blog for a while, I have a thing for smooth finishes. I am always running my hand over furniture in shops and antique centres, feeling up the furniture!)

When I was chatting with Annie Sloan recently (see this post about our skype session,) I mentioned that one reason I love painting furniture is that while it's creative and slightly artistic, it's very practical. I find it extremely relaxing to paint and I just love making something old and unloved, new and functional again.  Furniture is practical, Annie said that's one reason she loves it also.  I love seeing things transformed under my paint brush.

I am undecided if I will sell or keep the mirror. My intention was to sell it but when I propped it up in out hallway to take photos of it I realised how well it suits the rest of our house. What do you think?

I'm finding myself gravitating to the more muted "French tones" rather than the all white I have preferred for our house. Perhaps it's my way of getting ready for winter. It is definitely cooler in the evenings and early mornings here now. 

I've got a few exciting things to share tomorrow. In the mean time I hope you have a lovely day

Fiona xx

Sources

Mirror - second hand find

Grey Paint - ASCP in Paris Grey bought from French Folie in Concord

White Paint - ASCP in Pure White given to my by Annie Sloan Unfolded

Wax - ASCP Clear and Dark Wax - given to my by Annie Sloan Unfolded

Paris Grey Desk and Chair Makeover and Mother's day

Hello!  I hope you had a lovely weekend and Mother's Day. We had a beautiful day, starting with breakfast in a gorgeous cafe on the water's edge watching the Sydney early morning fog dissipated over the beautiful harbour.  It was a Paris Grey morning.

In the afternoon, the boys went off to the AFL and my daughter and I decided to venture to the shops for a browse - wandered around Pottery Barn for about 20 minutes but was a bit underwhelmed - I think that's my reaction to seeing it plastered over blogs and instagram - I'm never very good at following the crowd or buying new (rather than second hand)- although I have to admit that I did buy some demin coloured serviettes as you can never have too much table linen, right??  I did see several beautiful quilts at Pottery Barn and West Elm but as a daughter of a prolific quilter I'm not in the market for any new ones. It was however lovely spending quality time with my daughter, just the two of us. Such a different dynamic than having the two kids together. She told me tonight it was her best day ever- that makes mothering worth it all.

We also had a lovely dinner with my sister and family - very relaxed and delicious and an early night which was what we all needed. It was good to have some family time as my sister and I have been missing our mum on today of all days. It made me realised how sad today must be for some people - those who have lost their mums but worse, those who have lost their children and what a struggle today must be for them. Sending love.

I have just finished this little desk and chair. I love how little it is and it will eventually go in my son's bedroom. For the moment, it is in the corner of our bedroom.  

The lantern was my mother's day present! 

Painted in ASCP Paris Grey with Pure White trim and sealed with clear wax. I was going to paint it all white but one of my lovely friends talked me out of it and I'm quite glad especially as it'll eventually be in a boys room. I really like the shield on the back and used paint and a little distressing to highlight the features.

The chair is painted in pure white and I have to say I like this paint more than I expected - it is like painting with beautiful old fashioned gesso. While I was painting the chair I was reminded of the paint used on houses in Santorini - lovely textured bright white.

The damask fabric on the chair is left over from when I painted and reupholstered a French buttery fly extension table last year. I really love this fabric and am so happy to have a chair in our house in this material. See here for the table makeover.

With this desk I actually used a sealer and a primer as I could tell it would bleed - the original surface was stained dark and badly damaged -you can see it here. I also sanded it all very gently with a foam sanding pad in between each coat as I wanted a very smooth finish. I love how velvety smooth the finish can be with a little extra effort. So worth it.

I love this mix of Paris Grey and Pure White - I'm now working on a huge ornate mirror in the same colours. It's rather fabulous!  What do you think of the colours together - or do you prefer all white?

What did you get up to on the weekend? I'd love to hear.  Here's how I finished off our weekend - all snuggled up on the couch with my dog.

have a great day

Fiona xx

Sources

Desk and Chair - second hand finds

Striped Jug - my mums

Fabric - Reverse Garbage

Sealer - Resene Sealer

Primer - Waterbased Zinsser BIN

Grey Paint - ASCP in Paris Grey bought from French Folie in Concord

White Paint - ASCP in Pure White given to my by Annie Sloan Unfolded

Wax - ASCP Clear Wax - given to my by Annie Sloan Unfolded

Ampersand - birthday present from my kids (I think from Typo)

Glass Etched Lantern - my mother's day present (from The Works)

My Diary - http://www.personal-planner.com.au/AU/