Ladderback Chair Makeover

Hi everyone,
It's been a while since I posted a painting project so here's a little chair makeover I just finished.

I had so much fun with the Distressed Coffee Table a few weeks ago I decided to experiment with the same technique on a chair.

Here's a before shot. 

I painted each rung a different color and added black accents. 

This is the first layer or color. 

I waxed the first layer of paint and then added a second coat in a similar color. 

When the paint dried I scraped the wax and excess paint off.
Then I lightly sanded. I also painted the woven seat black.  

Last came a light coat of Minwax Polyshades in American Chestnut.
 I then wiped off the excess stain.  I added stain to the seat of the chair as well. 

And here's the finished chair. 

We have many more projects to come.

A Big Thank You and A Happy New Year!

Hi everyone,

We hope you all had a great holiday with family and friends. After a few days of vacation we are back to regular hours and open for business. We really enjoyed helping out all our Christmas Eve shoppers. It was so fun participating in the process of finding a great gift for someone special.

It has been an amazing first 6 months of business and we are so grateful to all of our wonderful customers. Your words of support and encouragement have meant so much. We are so looking forward to serving you all in the New Year!

We have a lot of unique consignment coming in and many more projects to show you. Updates, tutorials, and photos to come!

Gift Ideas: Holiday Edition!

Hi everyone! Happy holidays from Galeria CTR.
We just got a great gift for everyone. Cute little baskets filled with candy. Who doesn't love candy? These would make a perfect hostess gift or last minute party gift. Even great for those ugly sweater/ cookie exchange/ white elephant get togethers.
We have three to choose from: Santa, Penguin, or Polar Bear all filled with gourmet candies.
Here they are for your viewing pleasure...

from the 1800flowers catalog.
 $24.99 on their website...but we have them for 12. What a deal. 

Aren't they cute?

All the goodies inside!

They are so cute and they are disappearing quickly. Come get one before they're all gone.

"Reclaimed Wood" Style Distress Tutorial

I finished a new project today and I thought it turned out nicely. I had to share it with everyone. We got a table in on consignment last week. It was nice, but nothing special and the top was damaged. The owner was open to me giving it a little spruce-up so I went to town. The table was made of oak pieced together and sort of resembled all those reclaimed wood projects blowing up Pinterest lately. So I decided to enhance that look and here's what I came up with.

Here's the before. You can see the different pieces that make up the table top. 

I taped along each seam of wood and painted each with craft paint.

Here are my finished stripes. 

I painted leaving thicker and thinner parts for texture and I left a little space between stripes. 

After the paint dried I sanded with rough sandpaper. 

I painted irregular black lines for more definition between stripes and then used an old candle to wax the surface. 

I painted another messy layer of similar colors over the wax. 

I let let the paint dry. Then I scraped away the wax and some of the paint. 

After scraping I sanded again to get more of the wood to show through. 

Then some dark stain wiped on and off quickly. 

And here's the finished table top. I painted the edge black to finish it off. 

I also painted the feet black to tie into the top. "Reclaimed Wood" Coffee table $150

 Check back for more projects coming soon!

Christmas Gifts At Galeria CTR

Now that we have the tree up, decorations out, and Holiday music playing in the store, it's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas (except for the weather being so warm I've had the door open all weekend!). So for a great gift idea I have these beautiful blown glass ornaments on display on our tree.
They are each unique and would be teacher's gifts or for an ornament exchange party.

Look how beautiful they look in the tree.

$19.99 each 

(Belated) Weekly Gift Idea: Beersoap!

I need to do a little catch up with our weekly gift idea. Last week I was too busy eating turkey and forgot to post some weekly gift inspiration.
I love finding local artisans and crafters to feature in the store. This week we are giving a nod to neighbors up north in Menomonee Falls, WI. Milwaukee Beer Soap is a husband and wife team. Jim makes the beer and the soap.
 This is a perfect, unique gift, popular with men and women alike. These soaps smell amazing! Seriously, they fill a room with a great scent. We currently have three to choose from, Clean and Sober ;-), Oatmeal Stout, and Solomon's Bay Rum. I can't even choose a favorite, so you will have to come smell for yourself.

Here are a few pictures of this great product. They even come with a fact sheet to include in your gift wrapping.

At $6.50 it's a bargain as well!

So, if you're looking for something different and you like to support local crafters come in and grab one before they are gone. (It will happen. We already sold out once.)

Mixing My Own Chalk Paint

Well hopefully everyone had a great holiday weekend! We are back in town with a lot of exciting items coming in this week. Look for a post Friday filled with new projects and consignment.

But, for now, I'd like to show you how my experiment with chalk paint mixing went down. After several hours of research and trial and error, I have learned that either plaster of paris or non-sanded grout can be mixed with regular old 50 cent latex mess-ups from the hardware store. Both add-ins give you the great results of chalk paint. There were many recipes out there...but I'm not big on recipes. I just mixed a few tablespoons of plaster of paris with a little water and when it was smooth, added it to the paint in old ASCP 4oz container that I saved and stirred. I was looking for the consistency of the store bought chalk paint. It's just a little thicker than the regular stuff. What I got was great coverage and the smooth when waxed feel of ASCP without the price tag.

Here are some of the pieces I've been working on.

Here's our vintage rocker before...

And after with the plaster chalk paint mix. 

The paint covered that dark red stain beautifully. 

Here's the chair after being distressed and waxed.  

To get this look- I wiped away the paint with a damp cloth when it was not quite dry to avoid the mess that comes with sanding. Then I added a little bit of dark glaze over the distressed areas  and waxed the whole thing when it was dry. 

And here's a nice wood framed mirror with an ugly coat of green. 

I'm not sure what happened here, but it looks like someone added oil over latex paint or something. 

But the chalk paint is up to the challenge. It covered the scary paint job nicely.  I'm going to add a glaze and show you the reveal Friday. 

So for anyone who loves the look of chalk paint, but is trying to avoid the high price tag, mix your own. I tried it. It works!

Weekly Gift #3 Soy Candles Anyone?

Hi everyone. Today I would like to feature a beautiful line of candles that just hit the shelves at our store.  The Nicolet Candle Company uses recycled bottles as the holder for their perfectly blended soy candles. The great thing about the candles is that they burn clean so you can use the bottle as a drinking glass when your candle is gone. When burned these candles fill the room with a fragrance so delicious, in some cases, they smell good enough to eat.

Here are a few pictures of the sizes and colors available.

Blue Glass Available sizes: 6.5 oz for $22 or 14 oz $34
Available scents: Rosemary Mint and Pineapple Cilantro

Limited Edition Beach Glass 6oz $22 or 14oz $34
Available scents: Cinnamon Vanilla or Rosemary Mint

Amber Glass Available in 6oz $22 or 14 oz $34
Available scents: Cedar and Pine or Cinnamon Vanilla

In addition to these up-cycled bottle candles, Nicolet Candle Company makes a line of one of a kind wooden tea light holders. Crafted from pine trees, these candle holders will add rustic charm to any decor. 

The large size is $49 and small are $29

$69

I love the rings in these branches. $29 and $39

The two little twins are $30 for the pair. 

Come see these in person, they are each so unique!

My Biggest Refinishing Challenge Yet- Leather-topped Desk

Since opening in July I have learned A LOT about refinishing and repainting furniture. It's been a great experience and I feel much more confident lately. But then my neighbor brought in a large leather-topped desk in really bad shape and asked that I make it my next project. Wow, it needed a lot of love. The leather was burned in places and the wood was scratched and dented, AND it was missing a drawer. He wanted it to have a mahogany look and new black leather for his library.

I went to work researching how to replace leather and re-stain antique wood. There wasn't a lot of how-to's so I have added this one to help anyone out there with similar projects.

To the pictures!

                

As you can see I had my work cut out for me. I decided to use Poly-shades by Minwax so I wouldn't have to completely  strip the old stain. This an old piece and stripping brings the value way down on antiques.

Here's the original color. My customer wanted mahogany...

First, I sanded with 220 sandpaper and wiped off the dust.

Here's how the Minwax stain looked when dry. Amazing difference, right? And it had poly-urethane in the mix so I saved a step. 

Ok, so sanding, filling, and staining was the easy part. Now to my main concern- the leather top. At first I thought I might be able to save the leather, but it was too damaged. But if you do find a leather topped piece of furniture with minimal damage you can buy leather conditioner and that should save it.
Here are the pictures of the leather I was working with...

I'm not sure what was done to this desk, but there were huge circular burns and gouges. I couldn't save it, so after some research the first recommended step was to put stripper on the leather to make removal easier. An hour of struggling with the leather later, stripper was not helping. I then decided to try heat (which worked with the contact paper table). And to my relief, my trusty hair dryer did the job again.

An hour of struggling and I wasn't getting anywhere with stripper. 

Look how easily the leather came off with a little heat. I had the dryer set to medium and held it on each section for a few seconds. If the heat is too high is melts the leather making removal more difficult. 

This was the corner I struggled with before I tried using heat so I had to patch the scratches with wood filler before I added the leather.
I added a black leather piece to the desk with cement adhesive I cut a piece a little large than the space. After gluing the middle of the leather first, I trimmed the excess leather with an Exacto knife and glued the edges last. Some black leather shoe polish and the leather top was as good as new. You can order a new leather top online, but that was out of my customer's price range so I used nice furniture leather. 

Here's the black leather with a custom glass top that I ordered. 

And here's the finished product. We ended up cutting a piece of wood and staining it mahogany to cover the missing drawer. Other than that the desk was as good as new.