What I'm working on

It's been one of those weeks. I've been a bit busy with furniture, with a few tricky pieces but they are all turning out well in the end, fingers crossed.  I think that's one of the biggest lessons I've learnt when painting, is to not get put off half way through a paint job when it's not looking too good and you are struggling. Changing things around, using a different technique or different paint or even just keep on going can almost always rectify your problem.

I'm almost finished the beautiful country sideboard that I'm painting for a lovely couple who found me though a blog reader, Mandy and Mike. (Thanks Pam for passing on my details) Here's the before shot and once I've bought new hardware and put the doors back on I'll share the finished piece.  Goodbye country cottage...

I've also just finished a sweet chair for a previous customer, Gloria. She hasn't decided on the fabric for the seat pad but wanted the chair painted a creamy white so I used my precious stash of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Old White. The chair has been waxed and light distressed and I think will look very pretty once it's all assembled again.  Gloria recently bought an old police station up near Oberon and is turning it into a B&B. Several pieces of my furniture will grace the rooms. I'll share the details of it all soon, if you are interested in a weekend away.

I am also doing painting some beach house furniture for a new customer. Louise and her husband have recently bought a place in beautiful Whale Beach. My uncle lived there for many years in a house filled with surfboard furniture - such a relaxed vibe (he's such a hippy surfer dude) . For Louise, I'm painting 2 cube bedside tables and a bench. They are dark Balinese furniture that I'm painting bright white for a beachy theme.  I'm dealing with bleed though galore - almost under control now. I'll share photos once it's all finished.

I'm also repairing my dining room chandelier that now has two broken connections and I'm doing up a beautiful pair of French style iron lamps. I'll be listing them for sale soon. If I needed more lamps I'd definitely keep them but I already have several pairs of lamps around the house.  If you are looking for some lamps, stay tuned. These are stunning.

I'm juggling my furniture painting with business consulting work for a few different clients. It's a really good mix as I work on my consulting work while I'm waiting for the paint to dry!  (and sorting the laundry, cleaning the house, prepping dinner, taxi duties and kids sporting activities and my own swim squad..yada yada yada.. same as what you all have to do no doubt).  It's a balance isn't it, but working from home makes a huge difference to getting it all done.  I think next time around, I'll come back as a puppy. They certainly have the life!

Yesterday I was struggling with a few things and felt like never painting furniture again. I rang Sandy from Paint Me White and she laughed at that suggestion. My lack of proper workshop and also the hot weather (not good for painting) was getting to me. But a cooler day today and finishing a couple of pieces, I'm back on it again.  I have to get a wriggle on with our renovations so I have a studio!

What have you been up to - same old routine or something interesting?  Go on, make me envious!

I'm off to cook dinner (and have a glass of wine)

Enjoy your evening

Fiona xx

A bit of ornate flourish

I used to prefer everything plain and simple. My clothes, my food and my home décor - all simple, uncomplicated and never multi coloured. Not ornate, not floral, not too detailed - ok so I still haven't embraced colour very much but I do love a good scroll and flourish!

I have a pair of corbels that I was given and I gave them a little white wash and use them as book ends or just a little pretty detail for my hall table. I love corbels and their carved details. I thought about including them in my kitchen but in the end went with a simpler look. 

The white wash treatment brings out the detail even more keenly.

I love the rustic imperfection of these.

I love furniture with a little French flourish scroll-y detail on it. This type of furniture is quite hard to come by second hand in Australia so when I see it I snap it up.  I love that most of these details are hand carved and that some artisan sculpted these beautiful shapes.  Aren't we lucky to have such creative people in the world to make such beauty.

I'm off to take the kids to their various sporting activities. It's hot here so I'm hoping there's some shade (for me anyway)

Enjoy the afternoon

Fiona  xx

Furniture Topcoats and Waxes - Australian Edition

I get so many emails from you all asking about furniture painting, waxes, and  other top coat products. I'm slowly working my way through the list of questions in a DIY Tips tutorial series. I know for some of you this has been a long time coming.  Marian, aka Miss Mustard Seed, has done several wonderful posts on finishing painted furniture but I constantly get emails asking for what I use in Australia as a lot of the American products are not available here. So here is my list for topcoats and furniture waxes that are readily available in this fine land of ours down under.

My one disclaimer is please don't solely rely on me though as I have been using various top coats for many years now and I have found the best thing is to experiment with different products and find out what works for you and your own style of painting.

Furniture Waxes

When applying wax to a timber or painted surface, you need to rub it vigorously into the surface. The friction of the rubbing melts the wax and works it into surface to create adhesion and durability.  Wax will result in a soft lustrous sheen, but it can be buffed to a high gloss. With all the rubbing and buffing, applying wax can be a tedious process but I find that it is worth the effort for a traditional, hand rubbed finish.

My hands down favourite wax is Feast & Watson Mastertouch Carnauba Wax. Man, I adore this stuff. Feast & Watson, the company have a great history and success story - starting out in Sydney, Australia as a small family owned business in 1922, they are now part of the DuluxGroup.  The wax comes in brown or natural - I have only ever used the natural. It costs around $31  for a 500ml tin that will cover many many pieces of furniture.  Carnauba is a hard wax with a high melting point and I brush it in using a circular motion with the round bristled brush in the above photo. After letting it dry for about 15 minutes you can either buff it off with a dry cloth or to achieve a soft lustre you can sand the wax into the surface with very fine sandpaper or fine steel wool, rubbing with the direction of the grain.

It has a mild and very pleasant smell. I love the velvety smoothness that I can achieve with this wax.   This works very well with both Annie Sloan Chalk Paint and home made Chalk paint as well as any other porous paint - flat acrylic, milk paint or even natural timber.  You can even use this on your floors - it is extremely durable.  I adore everything about this wax, especially that I can buy a product manufactured and developed in Australia.  I use this product on 90% of my furniture these days. I can not recommend it highly enough.

Another wax I really like, and one that has been recommended to me by several professional furniture painters, is Howard Feed n Wax Carnauba Beeswax and Orange Oil mix. This is a fairly runny mixture that you squirt out of the bottle onto the furniture directly or onto a clean lint free rag and buff into the surface. It is very nourishing and super easy to apply.  It works beautifully over latex/acrylic paint as a top coat. It is also great to use on very ornate pieces as it's easy to get into all the nooks and crannies and polishes up well with a rag. I also often use it to give a quick shine to previously waxed surfaces. Once you rub it on you need to wait around 20 minutes and then wipe dry and polish.  The orange oil in it gives this a divine smell.

For polishing or buffing wax, I will often get an old sock and ball it up and then put it inside an old pair of pantyhose and then use this for buffing. It works very well. I actually learnt this from my days of being an Officer in the Royal Australian Air Force and spit polishing shoes for parades. We used to be able to achieve a super high gloss from finishing off with a pair of pantyhose. Hilarious to see all these macho pilots with a pair of stockings rolled up polishing their shoes. 

Soft wax - It is still not possible to buy Annie Sloan Soft Wax or Miss Mustard Seed's soft wax in Australia, although ASCP products should be here within a month. I have a few different soft waxes available in Australia that I will use for different finishes. I really like using (and the smell of) Organoil Natural Wax and Polish. It is actually very similar to Miss Mustard Seeds Soft Wax in texture. It states on the can that it shouldn't be used over painted surfaces but I have been using it on and off for 2 years and have never had trouble or negative feedback so I think it's fine.

Personally I do not like using pure beeswax mainly due to the smell. Never apply beeswax just before you sell a piece as it will definitely put off potential buyers! 

Water based Sealers

For table tops and other surfaces that are going to have a lot of wear and tear I tend to use a sealer than is more durable than wax.  Wax can get water marks in it quite easily and most people don't want to take care of their tables as much as a waxed surface would require. You can either spray or brush these on (I don't have a spray gun or any where to spray so I always brush on).

I have tried many different sealers over the years. I personally steer clear of oil based products mainly due to yellowing, the hassle of clean up and environmental issues.  All my furniture and my house is painted with water based products - I will write a blog post on this in depth sometime in the future. The only exception I make to this is, I very occasionally use a Zinsser oil based primer. 

I really like using the Porters range of sealers. They are Australian made, low VOC and are very easy to apply. Porters have two sealers : Clearcote and the All purpose Clear Sealer. These two products are almost the only non-yellowing (over white paint) products I have found. Never use an oil based top coat over white paint as it will literally yellow your paint work within months - sometime sooner. 

Be aware Clearcote can NOT be used on milk paint, or chalk paint. It will literally "eat up" your paint work and your hard work will disappear before your eyes - I have not had this happen to me as I knew about this incompatibility before using it but it has happened to other people that I know.  I still really love the Clearcote and would chose it every time for sealing timber table tops. It is extremely fast drying and doesn't show much brushmarks. 

If you are using paint with organic compounds (eg milk/chalk paints) then buy the Clear Sealer.  

I have also used (as a cheaper option to Porters) Cabot's Cabothane water based sealer. However this is meant to be non-yellowing over white paint but I had trouble with it on a desk painted in Dulux Fair Bianca. It literally yellowed the desk within a week. Luckily the yellowing was very uniform and the desk just looked as though it was a creamy antiqued effect but I won't trust it over white paint again. I use this now over coloured paint such as my turquoise/peacock blue pieces.

Wipe on Poly

I used to use Minwax Wipe on Poly over coloured or natural timber surface (never white as this will really yellow white paint, yep it's oil based) but I found it a lot of work to achieve the particular finish that I'm after and I now prefer the other products mentioned above. However I would not discount this as I think it can be easier to apply than the brush on sealers when you are first starting out.

Nude : No Top Coat

If you use a quality primer (I always use Zinsser) and a good quality satin or gloss paint it is also possible to not use any top coat. The glossiest paint finish I ever choose is "satin" as I prefer a matte low sheen look. My French buffet in my dining room has no top coat over the painted body. The walnut top surface is waxed. Admittedly the buffet is in a safe place behind the dining table and doesn't get touched much but the paint work is still perfect and clean bright white after 2 years.

I hope that helps you with your painting journey. I'd love to hear your feedback or any other products you use and can recommend.

See here for all my DIY tutorials in one place

cheers 

Fiona xx

Designing a French Kitchen

The post of my whole blog that has the highest page visits is the ones about my kitchen renovations. It is one of my very early posts and I've been meaning to write this post since then!  I wanted to share how I designed and built a $45,000 kitchen for around $17,000 and also to share what I learnt in the process.  Now I know that $17K is still a lot of money but this is our forever house, we started out with a kitchen that was terrible and needed completely gutting - the floor was n't level and was just packed dirt with lino over it, also we both love cooking and cooking together  and the price is great for what we ended up with and not for a completely new kitchen.

When we were commencing our kitchen renovations two years ago, I poured over home magazines, blogs and cruised around Sydney's kitchen shops getting ideas for months. I had three different kitchen companies come in to assess the space and provide quotes but for what I wanted, the quotes all came in between $40,000 and $45,000 and I couldn't bring myself to spend that amount of money. I decided that I knew what I wanted, how we used the kitchen and what we needed so I would design my own kitchen and that would eliminate the need for a kitchen designer.  You know I love the whole concept of DIY.  I have since had several builders, kitchen company people and even magazine people tell me that my kitchen is worth $40,000 so hopefully I can save you some money also if you are planning a new kitchen.

What I wanted was:

• more bench space
• more storage
• a big pantry
• a double sink
• a new dishwasher
• separate work zones
• a specific cupboard for the garbage bin

Things I used to give that French look:

• A French rangehood chimney
• crown moulding
• moulded cabinetry doors
• painted cabinetry (Colorbond Dune for a soft French taupe)
• Nickel and Porcelain handles
• a wicker basket for potato storage
• Ceramic sink and beautiful faucet
• glass cabinets for my stem wear

Using Microsoft Visio and Google SketchUp, I was able to develop very good detailed plans that we were able to build from. Using these two tools I was also able to move around cabinetry to get the best layout for the available space and be able to virtually walk around the new kitchen (via Google SketchUp) and see how it would look like and be to work in. French style is often very symmetrical so I moved the window over slightly to be centred in the room as much as possible and made the upper wall cabinets symmetrical around the new window.

Visio plans

I measured my space in all directions about 5 different times to be absolutely accurate - you really need to be millimetre perfect. I was also knocking out a wall and extending the kitchen cabinetry into what was the dining room to make the kitchen 300mm bigger (as you can see on the left hand side of the above plans. This has made a big difference to the cabinetry either side of the stove and the fridge and is such a small amount to lose from the dining room (that is now open to the kitchen anyway). One thing I learnt during the build process was to measure at different heights up your walls. The walls in our 90 year old house are not plumb and the wall cabinets needed to be shorter than the base cabinets along the side wall (the wall is about 3 cm out of plumb).  I then measured my appliances and worked out the allowances I would need around those items also.

I looked into IKEA kitchens but because I was fitting the kitchen into a room with 3 sides I needed a bespoke kitchen to make the most of the room. in the end, by using a cabinet maker I was able to build my French kitchen for just over $17,000. I costs a similar kitchen size using IKEA cabinetry and bench tops and it was around $13,000 so for me I preferred spending the extra money and having something that made the most of the space without filler spaces and also that was of a better quality and longer lasting.  I also contemplated building my own cabinetry and had it costed by two different flat pack kitchen places but the cabinetry costs alone (un-constructed and not even including delivery) were around $12,000 and then the stone benchtop would have been several more thousand on top of this.  I would then have had to build the cabinetry which can be tricky and time consuming especially when your walls aren't plumb. In the end we ended up doing the kitchen as part of a much larger renovation and we bricked up a doorway, pulled down a wall and inserted a steel beam as well as built a new floor (joists and floorboards) so I used my builder's cabinet maker who did a beautiful job and it all cost not much more then it would cost.

I did the initial plans in Visio (above) and then drew them in Google Sketch Up which is a fantastic free tool. (Download here) Even though this took several hours I found this to be very useful especially showing the plans to my husband and also the cabinet maker who hadn't built a kitchen in a French style before.  I have included some 2 dimensional snap shots of the 3D model below.  If you are interested in having a copy of my 3D model then feel free to email me or leave a comment below with your email address and I can send you a copy.

Once I was happy with my plans I had a meeting with my builder ( the delightful Barry from Serenity Constructions) and the cabinet maker he uses. Reba, his cabinet maker has a factory out in the western suburbs and is a delightful hardworking man with beautiful quality and craftsmanship... and wow he prices his cabinetry reasonably.  I would definitely recommend finding a cabinet maker to give you a quote rather than using one of the bigger well known Kitchen Companies.  Especially if you have an eye for design and space and know what you want. 

To achieve the French look that I wanted, I knew I wanted hand painted cabinetry so I had the doors made from MDF.  I don't see any point building cabinetry from wood that you are just going to paint over. Wood cabinetry for a kitchen this size would have cost $4000 more than using MDF. With wood there is also the chance that it will warp overtime. MDF doesn't ever warp. Great news.

The cabinetry doors were sourced through Sydney Doors.  This is a very economical way to buy moulded (or plain) doors. If you have an existing kitchen that is okay but you want to update the look then you can always just replace the doors of your cabinets. My door profile is code number 6009 XSQ.

Another way I saved money is to use the IKEA Domsjo sink rather than a fire clay English butler sink. I actually prefer this sink to the fire clay ones. I like how it fully extends the depth of the bench top and has the double bowl. At only $430 is sure saves a lot compared to others I have seen for around $1500.  I have blogged more details about the IKEA sink here (Domsjo product codes etc) and here (a one year review of the IKEA farmhouse Sink)

When designing a kitchen it is always good to think about where you will store your appliances. Are you someone who likes to leave your mixer, kettle and toaster etc out for easy access or do you like a clear bench top?  I am someone who likes everyday items out on the bench. I find that if my mixer and food processor aren't out then I don't use them.  When planning my kitchen, I made a little nook next to the fridge so that I could store my coffee machine, toaster, kettle and food processor there on the bench but out of sight from most of the dining room and kitchen. 

I wanted a good pantry as we like to store a quantity of dry goods. We bake and make a lot of food from "scratch" and I've got a wonderful collection of Tupperware (I won them years ago) so I built the pantry specifically around my Tupperware collection. Sad I know but so so practical especially in combating the Pantry Moth that is prevalent in Sydney. The best thing about using plastic containers to store your food though is the neatness factor. You can find everything at a glance, things stay fresher longer and you can easily see what you need to go shopping for.

The first two drawers below the pantry were built to easily store cans and other packaged goods (that are not kept in Tupperware). I love these drawers, and I especially love how I can see everything at a glance and don't have to delve back into deep cupboards. 

The big bottom drawer holds all our spare Tupperware containers, plastic glasses for the kids so they can get their own water, and lunch boxes etc. I think it's a great idea to plan a specific drawer for your plastic containers etc so they are all in one spot and contained (yes, contain the containers!)

The porcelain and nickel handles I have used are pretty expensive but I managed to buy them wholesale which saved an absolute fortune. I bought them from a very expensive kitchen company (that since has gone out of business) and I'm not exactly sure why the guy gave me such a good deal but it meant that for my whole kitchen I paid just $400 for the handles instead of the retail price of over $1000. My suggestions is always shop around and negotiate.

Crown moulding is another way to really jazz up your cabinetry. It is not expensive to add to your cabinets but I think it really finishes of the kitchen.  The other feature in my kitchen is the rangehood. My builder and I just made this out of MDF. It's basically a box that houses the actual ILVE rangehood and then a chimney that houses the exhaust pipe. It was very simple to build.

If you have any questions on how I designed my kitchen, how to save money or what products I used, feel free to leave a comment below.  I'll do another kitchen post soon on what I learnt by planning and building a kitchen.

I have to say I put so much thought and effort into this kitchen - lots of late nights and research and two and a half years down the track I still would not change a single thing so I think that's pretty good.

Yours in happy cooking!

Fiona xx

Photo Credit: Photos number 1,4,8, 12 and 19 were taken for the Country Home Ideas Magazine shoot. Thanks Tony!

World Map Mural Walls

Take me away....

I am a bit fascinated by maps...always have been, and never grown out of it. I think it's the youthful backpacker that is still remnant in me .. hidden beneath the domesticity, motherhood and corporate-ness of these last twenty years.  I'm dreaming of being carefree, with my backpack and passport and hiking boots and  one of our many Lonely Planet guides and hitting the road for a few months....(actually I used to always back pack with my water colours and my camera also and barely any clothes).  Well with two primary school aged kids and a mortgage and upcoming renovations and a business to run open ended roaming of the world is not going to happen so I'll have to settle for some map gazing....

....I especially love these big colourful maps with bright blue oceans and green lands.  So I'm a bit in love with a map feature wall.  I am toying up with using one in my son's bedroom when we renovate. 

A friend recently bought an amazing house and her son's bedroom already had a huge map wall and another chalkboard wall. Talk about not needing to decorate!

Here are some other examples I've found on the internet. Credits can be found by clicking on the photo.

So a lot more colourful than anything I currently have in my house but I think for a little boys room it's just perfect.  If you are interested in buying a map wall mural in Australia here are some sources I have found (but not recommending or sponsored by)

Wall Scenes 

All Posters

Map World - (which is the ones you see in Flight Centre)

What do you think of this as a decorative feature wall?  

Does it make you want to book a holiday?

Fiona xx