Emmy's New House

Emmy & Nate bought a new house this past spring and she had lots of projects for me!!!

They found a great Tudor style home in a great neighborhood and I am really excited for them. 

 Here are some of the projects I did for her:

Farmhouse Table

She asked me to build a table because she had a certain size she wanted, 4' wide x 7' long!!

It works perfectly in her new dining room with the chairs from her old dining set

that we painted and she recovered a few years ago.

Shelves 

The house had a small nook in the kitchen.

It was the perfect place for a little dresser Emmy had painted for her previous house.

She asked me to do some shelves for above it.  

We bought the corbels at Osborne Wood Products.

Cabinet

In older homes extra storage is always a bonus!

We took an old record player cabinet from her grandfather's house painted it,

 and now she has some extra storage in the front hall!

BEFORE

(I forgot to take before pictures of the next two projects so these are some pictures of in progress in my garage!)

It was in pretty bad condition so we decided painting was a good idea.

I rebuilt most of the interior to give her more shelves.

We used the original hardware after spray painting it gold.

AFTER

I also made the chalkboard and Emmy had a friend do the chalk art!!

Isn't it great?  You can see more of her work at Erin Barker Illustration.

Chest of Drawers

Emmy wanted some extra storage in her upstairs hall so we took an old dresser and painted it.

This gives her space for extra linens etc.

Again, we used the original hardware after spraying it gold.

BEFORE

AFTER

There are a few other projects but I think this is enough for one post!

Thanks for stopping by!

A New Room for Sam!

Sam and I decided it was time to do a room that fit his personality and age :)!!  So .... here it is!

Modern Platform Bed

Sam choose a picture of a  modern platform bed on Houzz found here, 

and I duplicated it to the best of my ability.

He wanted me to do it in black.  I used black stain so some of the wood would show through.

Here is what we came up with:

Pottery Barn Style Desk

Next I designed a workspace using a desktop from Pottery Barn I got at a garage sale.

I made two shelf units for the top to sit on.  I painted the whole thing black.

I found the stool at a thrift shop and spray painted in.

His dresser is one I bought at a thrift shop and painted for our office but we decided it would work well in Sam's room.  More on that here.

The bedside table and shelves were things I built for his previous room. 

Thanks for stopping by!

I'm Back!!!

Wow!!!  I can't believe it has been over 6 month since my last post.  This past spring and summer was wild and crazy around my house.  I have been working in the garage, just haven't found time to post anything!  So, my next few posts will be a dump of everything that has been going on in

Gretchen's Garage for the past 6 months!

First up are some items I made for a friend who owns a restaurant.

They serve barbeque so they have a rustic theme!

CROWD CONTROL POSTS

I made the post with pine 4 x 4, 2 x 6 and 2 x 4 boards.

They are stained with Minwax Dark Walnut and

coated with Minwax Polycrylic in Satin Finish.

SADDLE STAND

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A friend sews doll clothes and she go me interested  in building a doll clothes wardrobe.

This is what I came up with!

I have sold 5 so far - they are $35 if you are local and are interested leave me a message!!

They would make a great Christmas Gift.

AMERICAN GIRL DOLL WARDROBE

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CHALK PAINT

 A good friend gave me a few small pots of CeCe Caldwell's chalk paint.

So ...  I made her a box.

I did a base coat in Young Kansas Wheat and a top coat in Michigan Pine.

Next step was sand lightly to reveal some of the base coat and then a coat of paste wax.

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BEFORE AND AFTERS

Next up is a small dresser I painted for a friend.

It started as a light stained well used dresser and

turned into a beautiful black finish

with gold glaze on the drawers.

SMALL DRESSER BEFORE

 SMALL DRESSER AFTER

Next I freshened up a four post vintage bed that a friend gave me.

It was well used!  I sanded it and painted it white.
I sold it on Craig's List to a father who wanted it for his daughter's bedroom.
That is exactly where I thought it should go!

VINTAGE BED BEFORE:

VINTAGE BED AFTER

When my neighbor's had a moving sale there were a few items left they did not want to take with them

so they gave them to me!

There were two tables that needed a bit of work but they came out great!

SMALL TABLE BEFORE

SMALL TABLE AFTER

LARGE TABLE BEFORE

LARGE TABLE AFTER

Well that's it for now!  Thanks for stopping by.