The Finished Piece

Well I was able to wait almost 24 hours before reassembling the dresser and moving it back into it's place. You'll remember that I wanted the finished piece to look like this. I think overall it was definitely a success and served it's purpose to brighten up the bedroom. Here's the final transformation:

Before:

After:

See the process here.

Anniversary Week in Photos

This week C and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary which is the cotton anniversary. The week began with the Hard Rock Pool in Biloxi and ended with brunch at Cafe Atchafalaya. For our 1st anniversary (paper) we got each other hang out festival tickets, so we decided to stick to the theme this year. I got us some super high thread count cotton sheets and Christian got me an assortment of cotton goodies. For dinner we went to Dominica (first time) but decided to leave the camera at home. Food was great, we will return. John Besh is after all my favorite Nola chef.

Anniversary Day:

Cotton sweater, tank top, and scarf, candles from my favorite local vendor, flowers from the market

Cafe Atchafalaya: 

C believes breakfast must include an multitude of beverages 

Duck confit poboy with slaw and roasted potatoes  

Soft shell crab over spinach with strawberries and a strawberry vinaigrette 

June's Second Saturday

This past Saturday we featured three female mixed media artists: Ivy, Ellie, and Jodie. Here's how it went:

Jodie Flowers:

Ivy (Dinosaur) McLemore: 

Elli Diaz:

An Update on the Summer To Do List

In a moment of transparency, I will tell you that we have misplaced our camera cord (finally located today in C's work bag). So please pardon our hiatus, we have some great posts coming soon about our most recent Second Saturday and our Sunday brunch at Cafe Atchafalaya.

photo from nomenu.com

However, thanks to my iphone I was able to document some house projects to keep it fresh. As you saw here, I have a few projects I would like to complete before returning to work in late July. Since beginning my break on Monday, I have completed the dresser (almost) and spray painted a few odds and ends. I love how much a coat of spray paint can transform almost anything. I wish I had shot the before photos, but these two objects from our bathroom are now coated in lime green:

This is a magazine rack I got from a friend who was moving out of town two years ago. The before was brass and dingy. 

This plastic tray came from another moving friend. It had a very unfortunate looking rooster on it, so I was glad to paint over that!

On to the dresser. This is my first destressed painting project and I got the how to from HGTV. I chose the dresser in our bedroom (given to me by another moving friend) because the wood hasn't been well cared for and although I've heard you shouldn't paint over exposed wood, I needed something brighter in the bedroom.

Before: 

So here's how the process went. First I removed all the drawer pulls and spray painted them black.

Then, I sanded the whole dresser down, which wasn't too bad because there wasn't much of a seal left.

After sanding it down I gave it two coats of white primer. Then I painted two coats of bumble bee yellow. I let all this dry over night. And this morning I painted two coats of cobalt blue.

After letting the blue dry for a couple of hours I began the process of destressing. As per my source, I rubbed candle wax on key spots before painting over the yellow with blue. I used steel wool to take off the blue paint in key areas that would often appear worn by time (i.e. corners, edges. places where hands would most often fall). I found that the steel wool worked well on edges and corners but not so well on the flat surfaces. Here I used sand paper, lightly. The final step was to rub a seal over the entire piece and all the drawers.

Tomorrow I'll reattach all the drawer pulls and move it back in place. I want to give it a full 24 hours to dry. Photos of the finished piece to come. 

1239 Beach Retreat 2012

This past weekend Christian, myself, and the rest of the cast from 1239 Congress drove to Biloxi, MS for a weekend on the beach. The goals for the weekend were to finalize a board of directors, write a business plan for the non-profit as well as for the artist exchange program, and define each of our jobs with in the non-profit. It was such a good idea (kudos to Matt and Becca for planning) we got a ton of work done and sunbathed a bit too. Writing the mission statement, business plan, and bylaws for the non-profit taught me so much more than I ever knew about starting a business. For example, once we choose the board and each member accepts, the board is forever in charge of electing more board members as needed (interesting right?) The task of choosing the board suddenly seemed very serious; we had to choose people we knew aligned with our core values so we could hand all that responsibility over to them without reservations. After much deliberation we are confident we made some solid choices. I took on the role of maintaining the website and blog (more on that next week) and Christian and I will continue to be in charge of Second Saturday Art Shows (we have our 5th show coming up this week).

The view from the condo

The Morning Meeting

 

 Beach Break:

Afternoon meeting by the pool:

The Evening meeting, and of course there was a great meal:

 Watching videos and the evening break:

After everyone left on Sunday, Christian and I headed to the Hard Rock Casino and Hotel for some pool time and a start to our anniversary week: