Say hello

...to the first ever Retro Restyling full restore, restyle and repurpose!

This 1940's server was inherited by my friend T and her husband E from his grandmother. Over the years it sat in some unfriendly to furniture elements and inevitably ended up getting a lot of water damage before they rescued it. It was painted a horrible glossy black and partially stripped so it kind of looked charred. 

They really wanted to be able to give this piece a home in their dining room so T gave me a call which was great because this server really needed some Retro Restyling lovin'!

Look at how bad the water damage was, 3 inches of rot had to be cut off the bottom. 

My wood guy, who you will meet in another blog post soon to come, cut off the rot and recreated the swirly detail at the bottom and gave it two new pieces of trim on the sides. He also replaced the back and bottom panel, and the bottom to the drawer as well. This is what it looked like after it was stripped... you can see the blackness in the wood from water damage.

You ready for the after picture?

T has a love for Tuscan colors in her home so she wanted something that was going to be colorful....after some persuasion of course - don't be afraid of color!! ;)

I stained the inside of the drawer and the server itself an English Chestnut to match the dark wood trim she has throughout her house.

Now, please forgive me for these pictures. I'm still trying to figure out my camera and I delivered last night so I had no natural lighting. I ended up pulling the red down in the camera because the shine from the flash and the red overload was driving me bonkers.

Not so red, but now you can see the inside stained....

...and some detail sanding I did.

Plus, when I stripped the old hardware down this particular piece showed how old I thought the server was. You can see it says 1945...and you can see my Christmas socks....

I couldn't be more thankful to be a part of a full restore, restyle and repurpose, especially for another piece of furniture that has sentimental meaning. Now instead of sitting in a basement, this server can be a usable piece and it's still a part of the family!

Thanks for stopping by today!

If you have any questions or comments about the restore, please feel free to leave some below!

If you have a piece that needs some R.R. TLC, please contact me!

Say hello

....to Elizabeth, my new addition to the Retro Restyling family. She is a very old Tiger Oak dresser that has great detail in the wood grain. I named her Elizabeth because I have so many in my life that are beautiful and complicated creatures that I love dearly. This Elizabeth needed a lot of TLC to get a side to side shift fixed and there was a lot of veneer that needed to be patched. She was originally bought and restyled for a benefit trivia night for a friend of mine who is struggling with breast cancer. I had a ton of compliments (some girls there were actually almost drooling over her - ha!) but no bids. That's ok though because there were so many other items that brought in some good money for my friend.

All the locks actually work and I have an antique skeleton key I found in another piece of furniture that turns the locks! Of course you have to be ginger with them, but it's so cool they still work.

Look at that beautiful pin and crescent drawer joint! This dresser is almost 100 years old! The blue gray color is awesome and the glaze I used really brought out the grain of the wood. I hope you enjoyed my furniture transformation. If you are interested in purchasing Elizabeth she is available in the Etsy store.

**** Update! Elizabeth didn't hang around long! A mommy-to-be has snatcher her up and will be using her in a nursery for her baby! Pictures of Elizabeth in her new home will come later this summer! :)

Monogrammed Chalk Board - Decorative Tray Tween Gift

A couple weeks ago we were invited to a birthday party for a family friend, and of course I love to make some hand made gifts so I came up with a great idea for her. Plus, I never really do anything girly because I have boys so I had fun making a tweeny girl gift! So hang on tight, there's gonna be lot's of photo's today just in case you would like to make something like this too!

(sorry for the first few dark pictures, I started at night and finished the next morning)

I decided to make a monogrammed hanging chalk board and decorative tray based on the colors of this gift bag, and the card... my kids and I loooove these crazy cards!

These are the numerous supplies, most were bought at Hobby Lobby, some I already had on hand from previous projects. I'll go into more detail with each ones corresponding picture. First off I started with the bare wood tray (seen below on the right).

I hot glued the underneath bottom piece for added support in the joints.

I used some acrylic paint I already had on hand to mix this pretty bright pink color and I painted the tray except for the bottom.

I picked out a few sheets of cute "not-so-girly-yet-still-girly" scrap-booking paper. I cut it down to size, which can be a little hard because unlike wrapping or wall paper this stuff doesn't want to bend.

After wraaastling with the paper and getting it cut to the right size, I painted a thin layer of Mod Podge on the bottom.

Then came the part where I had to work quickly.... getting the paper in straight and getting the bubbles out. This spatula worked really well to get in the corners and to flatten out what was bubbling. After I got it all nice and flat I used a glossy water based polyurethane to seal the paper and the pink paint.

Next came the chalk board. This was a rather large piece of birch craft wood, I'm guessing it was about 12" wide by 24" tall. I wanted to thread ribbon through the top so I marked some holes to drill.

Holes drilled. :)

Using painters tape I sectioned off where I wanted the chalk and colors to be. It is very important to use a flat edge and push that tape down well. I used my spatula just like I did on the tray paper to get a nice seal on the wood or believe me, your paint will bleed.

I started off with brush painting on two coats of blue acrylic paint. I let each layer dry well, then pulled the tape, lined up new tape over the blue and painted one good layer of the chalkboard paint on with a 1.5 inch paint brush (I use Purdy brushes).

As you can see the tape is over the blue and sectioned out for the green to be painted on.

I know you can't see it but the tape is covering up the green layer I painted so I could paint the pink that matches the tray on the top.

So while all that was drying, I got to work on the monogramme letters. I picked out a font that I had on my computer (1001freefonts.com is where I get all my free fonts)... nothing too girly, yet girly... there's a method to this madness...

This is how I layered this: 1 layer of scrap-book paper taped down, another layer taped down on top of that, then the printed letter taped down on top of that on top of a small cutting board. It wasn't moving... period. I used an X-acto knife to cut the letters out, and by putting two layers of scrap-book paper in there I had an extra letter just in case I messed up. I removed it, flipped it and went back over it again in the corners before I tried to pull out the letter. I wanted crisp corners that weren't torn.

So... being in a hurry I kiiiiinda forgot to take some of the last pictures... :(  Sorry... but.... basically all that was left to do was line up the monogrammed letters in the middle of the top blue part, paint some Mod Podge on the back and stick them on the there really well. After they dried I took a white paint pen and lined the paper to make it pop off the board a bit and I painted some dots on the bottom of the board just to add a design. I used the poly again and painted it on the board everywhere except the chalkboard. Note to self: make sure the paint from the paint pen is VERY dry or it will smear when applying the poly.

And....TA DAH!!!! This is the final result! I threaded the satin ribbon through the top and tied it together, bought some chalk and packed it all up!

(click on the image to see a larger view)

What a great gift for a 12 year old girl, and she really liked it!

If you don't want to brave making one of these for you're tweeny girl (or boy - I'm sure I can make it boyish) lemme know! Thanks for stopping by my blog today and checking out my project!