Room Progress

...but this is all you get.

Finding an apartment in San Francisco is next to impossible unless you're willing to stomach paying over 1500/mo for a room. Not apartment. Not house. ROOM. Literally everyone I talk to who pays less always follows up how much they pay with, "but like, I've been here for four years. This would go for $2200/mo now." Then I want to slap them and be them at the same time.

The point is that for now, I'm subletting until I can find an apartment that I love/can afford. However, that's not going to keep me from putting some effort into making the one I'm in now cute. It was a bit of a mess because I had to move furniture out of that room that was left in order to move my stuff in but there was literally no room because two other people were moving as well. It was like a game of Tetris....from hell.

Mended Furniture - Serpentine Dresser (Re-Post)

 

 

 

I've have a ton of traffic from Pinterest on this post so I thought I'd go ahead and re-post it. Enjoy!

I say this every time I finish a piece of furniture for someone, but I think this is my favorite one yet! As a reminder, through the Mended Nest, I sell furniture that I find and repaint OR I repaint other's furniture. In this case, this is a client's dresser who trusted me enough to let me go crazy and do whatever I wanted. Obviously, it's not too off-the-wall, but still young, fun, and classic.

It took a lot a work, but it was totally worth the effort. I started by painting the whole dresser in Annie Sloan's Paris Grey and the drawers (and the sides of the dresser) in Provence. I also added a border of Provence on the top of the dresser. After applying a few coats, I went over the whole thing with a mixture of French Linen and water, wiping the excess with an old shirt as I went. This allowed the original color to bleed through with a washed/cloudy effect. After it dried, I distressed it a little and applied both clear and dark waxes to seal the paint. Again, I couldn't be more pleased with the outcome; I hope my client feels the same way!

If you're interested in getting a quote for your furniture, email us at TheMendedNest@gmail.com!

French Inspired Dresser

So what do you think?! This is a dresser that I've recently refinished using Annie Sloan's paints and waxes. For this piece, I used Louis Blue and Pure white to get a French antique inspired look. (The before pictures are obviously the ones at the bottom lol) I love it!

This item is for sale, and you can see it in person at The Foyer (corner of Perkins and Acadian). Remember, if you're interested in having a piece of furniture refinished by The Mended Nest, please email us for a quote at themendednest@gmail.com!

Annie Sloan Desk - AFTER

Aaaand here we have it! Finally, I was able to finish the desk last night (that I posted about two days ago). What do you think?

I chose two colors for the whole thing: Annie Sloan's Versailles and Country Grey. I used Versailles for most of the desk, saving Country Gray for the trim at the bottom, hand drawn diamonds on top, and for the pulls. To add a little funkiness, I added the gold wax to outline the diamonds, and I LOOVE it.

This desk is FOR SALE, so if you're interested in the price, please email us at TheMendedNest@gmail.com!

Annie Sloan Desk - BEFORE

Hello!

I apologize for not posting yesterday. The St. Patty's day weekend got the best of me, and there was no way I was getting up before absolutely necessary yesterday morning. Now - on to the good stuff...

This is an office desk that my good friend/sort of business partner, Chad picked up from just outside Baton Rouge. It's a solid oak desk that was trapped in the early 90's. It just needed (the furniture equivalent of) a little Juvederm® and Botox®, so as soon as he brought it over I got to work. I decided to use my favorite color for the majority of the desk - Annie Sloan's Versailles. Then, instead of making a border around the top like I've done for previous pieces, I decided to to a diamond pattern. I think I got a little lucky because I really only measured the middle diamond, and it just so happened that the outside two fit perfectly. 

So this is the paint BEFORE the waxing. I'll post the final product tomorrow (as soon as I finish it). Get excited though - it's looking GREAT so far!

DIY - Old Lamp; New Life

I've always disliked this lamp as it's shown in the before (second) picture. Really, there was nothing wrong with it - I just didn't care for the colors. The shape, on the other hand, I thought was pretty interesting. We have it next to our bed and sitting on a simple wooded bed side table that's finished with a super dark stain. With the lamp in it's original color, I thought it was too dark for the table, and too much of a contrast to our all white bedding. Soo...

Annie Sloan paint saves the day again! I'm telling you, this stuff is awesome. You can see how shiny and glossy the lamp was before - there's no way a regular paint would stick to that. However, I only had to use ONE coat of Annie Sloan's Versailles to cover the entire thing. (I chose this color because it's the closest thing to chartreuse...Beau's favorite color. plus, I knew it would help lighten up the table - especially with a silver clock and white picture frame) Once dry, I went over the lamp with clear wax first then added a touch of the dark (wiping off the excess) just to add a little bit of that antiqued look.

Total work tine: 10 minutes (plus one day for the paint to dry) What do you think? Pretty, right?

Mended Furniture - Jeri's Dresser

I love these before and after photos - there's such a huge difference between the two! This is actually one of Jeri's pieces that was sitting in the TV room at my parents house. The dresser was pretty before, she wanted to kick some new life into it and move it to the living room.

Since she already has a lot of whites and other light colors in that room, I wanted to keep this piece consistent and not do something too over the top that would draw too much attention to it. As usual, I wanted it to be subtle yet special.

For the body of the dresser (except for the side panels) I went with one of my favorite colors: Annie Sloan's Country Grey. It's so soft and elegant and responds SO WELL to the waxes. For the side panels and the drawers, I used a color that I've never used before (and happens to be my favorite from the Annie Sloan collection IF I had to choose)...Versailles (ver - sigh)! It's a beautiful green that responds especially well to the Country Grey. They're similar, but offer just enough contrast to where it's not too obvious.

Remember, if you have a piece of furniture that you'd like to get a quote on for us to refinish, send us an email! TheMendedNest@gmail.com.

DIY Office Storage Creative Solutions (Part 2)

Last week, we showed you another creative storage idea for your home office and I'm happy to announce that part 2 is here! Since starting The Mended Nest, we've found ourselves doing a lot more gift wrapping - often times for merchandise that we're delivering. When we started the process of turning our guest bedroom into an office, we tried to think of more efficient ways of storing all the wrapping supplies we need...rather than keeping everything in a box on the floor.

Just like the last project, this was totally Beau's idea, so I didn't actually make it. However, I'll try my best to explain the process.

1. Paint two pieces of wood (equal in size) white (or whatever color you want for your office). Screw these into the wall. These will act as the frame for the whole thing. Make sure to measure! You dont want to put them too far apart to where the rods won't reach both ends.

2. Drill the eye hole screws into the wood. Make sure you're drilling them at the same height for each...unless you prefer ugly and lopsided rods

3. Slide the wrapping paper, ribbon, etc., onto the rods (before hanging the rods)

4. Hang the rods up by the eye hole screws

Just think: this will come in handy especially during Christmas!  

DIY - Nightstand in Arles

This weekend, I finished up another Mended Furniture project...and it isn't Duck Egg Blue! Beau's step mom, Claudean contacted me and explained she was in search of a little night stand for their newly built guest loft. Coincidentally, I had just taken one from my parents' attic in hopes of refinishing and selling it. Claudean wanted to go with yellow, so after discussing a few options, she chose Annie Sloan's Arles. To be honest, yellow would have been one of the last colors I personally would have chosen, but I'm glad Claudean did because after seeing the end product, it looks GREAT! I'm so aggravated with myself because I completely forgot to take "before" and "progress" pictures. Oh well - hope you guys and gals like it!

For more info or pricing quotes for Mended Furniture - contact us at TheMendedNest@gmail.com! 

DIY - Mini Dresser (Mended Furniture)

Finally, I was approached about refinishing a piece of furniture! Jessica, one of Beau's coworkers, found a beautiful vintage mini dresser at an estate sale in need of a little TLC. As we were chatting at an engagement party, I convinced her to let me take on the project. I gave her the choice of any color within the Annie Sloan collection, but liking another table I finished in Duck Egg Blue, she decided on that color. (Good choice if you ask me!)

I am happy to say that the mini dresser can out beautifully! I used a lot of the dark wax and manually distressed it a little more than usual trying to really give that vintage/antique vibe. I also took the opportunity to replace the knobs with some that were a little more interesting and that better matched the finished product. I know Jessica liked the finished product. We hope you do, too!

Remember, as well as custom invitations, Beau and I also refinish, upholster, and repaint furniture. Also, we have a few pieces for sale. If you're interested in a quote, please email us at themendednest@gmail.com!

Before and After - Living Room

So we haven't done a "before and after" of our house in forever, so here we go! There are so many after pictures that I wanted to share with you guys, but I wanted to keep it consistent with the before pictures that I took, so the images are a little limited. As you can see, Beau and I had quite a bit of work cut out for us - notice the new fan installed by yours truly! It was hilarious, although not at the time, but when I finished installing it and flipped the breaker, something was wrong and half the house lost electricity (including the a/c). This was in the middle of summer after a long day of work. I was NOT happy. However, the biggest challenge (for me) was repainting. Since the original color (aka baby blue) was painted in a semi gloss, I was forced to prime the walls (twice in some areas) THEN apply two coats of our paint. Nonetheless, I couldn't be happier with the outcome. 



To keep it consistent, except for the bathrooms, we went with a pale gray called Madeline Steps (Valspar). I'd recommend this color to anyone, just be careful! Depending on your trim and floor color, different colors in the gray will be brought out, and it could seem like the wrong color. For example, in our old house with more yellowish/antique white trim, this color came out a nice shade of...purple. At first, we though it looked off because we were painting at night, but when we go back the next morning, it was STILL purple. I almost died.