Desk top and modesty board finished

Only have time to post one  piccy.  I have managed to conjure the ghost of the previous life from within the wood.  Oh don’t you just love all the loaded suggestion of gorgeous driftwood!

Have to catch up with the day job now and line up my soldiers for stage two of desk e.g. prepping and applying Zinser BIN to internals.  Zinser is the best invention ever!  The whole world is your canvas with fabulous Zinser!  Can also save you mucho dinero, for sure...

Design is complete.  I’ve already started to move on to my next project in my head.  It’s a mini set of drawers from Ikea where I’m making a taller unit and decoupage drawer fronts, adding new handles and painting the whole thing in.....you guessed it: GOLD.

“I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams." - Hamlet, II.ii

I am funking up my furniture!

It worked ppl, it worked! My reputation lives to tell another tale.

Final design of desk is also complete in my brain box, will draw and colour it later, when things are quieter and I’ve cleaned up a bit.

So here are before and after blah, gotta go ppl and try hold down the day job...

Driftwood desk (originally Schrieber)

Oh wow, I bet you could maybe see that the job ahead of me was going to be fun fun fun!  All I can say is, what a wonderful way to forget that I’m in prison, as it were,and that we live in such maniacal times that it’s even illegal to venture to The Range.

So, we’re with Rustoleum’s Weathered Wood now, and so far so good.  I bought two tins, the ash grey and the smoke white to work in layers.  You need to stir this product really well, because it separates while standing on shelves at the retailers.  I bought two colours because driftwood, or aged wood per se, is always more than just one colour.  I also mixed in at the start, a small amount of Farrow & Ball’s ‘Pointing’ colour.  I adore Farrow and Ball, but to my mind, Darling Wilko cooks up fantastic cheaper alternatives.  

Once the Rustoleum Weathered Wood was mixed to the consistency of single cream, I went to work...

There was a nail-biting hour or so, after it was all prepped, when I felt completely at a loss as to how to proceed e.g. to work from dark to light, or light to dark?  This dilemma threw into question just how much sanding I had ahead of me, thankfully there was none.   The colour that was left, which was eventually very red, I decided to retain and use as the dark undertone, for when I sand and wire brush paint back later, that red under layer will appear as small dark areas, a bit like Sgraffito.  

There are very good videos out there showing how to approach both options, but there are more videos of people working from dark to light, so I went with that interpretation.

First, I stripped both panels, being the modesty board and the desk top, with a wire brush, then I stripped them with chemical varnish stripper, from Darling Wilko.  Then, after two hours, I scrapped off the gloup with a plastic scraper.  Then I washed off all the residue with soda and white vinegar.....that’s when ‘light bulb in head‘ moment happened and I said to myself “right, now I get it!’.

Put simply, to my way of understanding this faux patina thing, it’s only when water swells the wood that the nature of the wood changes, be it rain, fresh, or salt water, it’s the water part that really kicks things off.  

So after the wood had been scrubbed, it became a velvety cold surface that opened up to the various layers of paint.  I suppose what I’m trying to say is, that’s when it became super-porous and absorbent.  So the colour you are applying will actually go into the wood and change it, as well as rest on its surface.

And off I went....

The last photo is my favourite so far, but things have moved on a lot since then, more for another post.

I am so enjoying slapping on this fake patina, it’s really, really enjoyable!  I have always wanted to recreate driftwood, so for me, to do this to that desk is so special.

Whenever I see a piece of driftwood I’m always completely transported back in time, following its battered path over many years to become such a remarkable object.  To the concept of interiors, the past is fundamental.  From the beginning of time, in our dwellings we have always given respect to those that went before, and what I particularly love about driftwood is it’s wood with the appearance of a bone or fossil....and you KNOW how I adore my fossils and bones.

To think, we can now make our own driftwood from convenient tins!  Much better than organising dawn raids of coastal regions.

The desk is going to take looooooonger than I thought, but the drawers are now a source of creative zeal, because being small, and something you interact with, the possibilities are.....endless....

Stay sane ppl, there’s not much more of this imprisonment to go...

Moroccan bedroom - more pictures

Well, it will come as no surprise that I’m getting dangerously close to the limit of my budget for this bedroom.  So far I’ve bought one dud, which is not too bad, considering a dud or two are inevitable in projects like this.  

So I’m trying to create a feeling, an experience, and a big change in my environment.  I think I have achieved this, but now, because my sanctuary is so vastly improved, I’ve set my sights on another room, but because the money has run out, I’ve started up-cycling furniture.  

To be honest, I didn’t want to start doing that now, on top of everything else, but we have to ask ourselves, when is the right time for anything, actually?  Exactly, the right time is always the time you decide it HAS to be done.

Ok, so here are some photos of the bedroom, with the dressing table and canvas on the wall and another piece that I think works really well, that’s out of this shot.  

Here you can see how the purple background and gold stencil colours are mixed in the eye, to create a kind of rich brown.  This effect blends well with the earth colour of the walls.  I’m so glad the curtains can remain the same, I really didn’t want to start looking for curtains.  You can also see in the image above, an RSJ sticking out of the feature wall.  This idiosyncrasy of the room was always a potential problem, but I think now, it somehow adds something strangely positive to the whole effect.  I did worry quite a bit about how the RSJ would look, I’m so pleased its totally fine.  

OK, so above is a rather blurry picture, I’m afraid, of the dressing table area I created.  As you can see, I simply hung the Moroccan style mirror much lower than usual for it to also be the dressing table mirror and it works!  The mirror really suits the room too.   

I’ve changed the orientation of the dressing table, in that now I face the light, which is much better and I changed the chair I used to have, for this dinky stool in a very Moroccan colour.  This means the dressing table and the door can comfortably co-exist.  I’ve eliminated a small chest of drawers I used to have near the entrance of the room.  I was so pleased I did that, because now when you come into the room, there is nothing in the way, just lots of space.  Creating space is very important in room design.  

The stool was about £50 which was OK, but I could have got something much cheaper at TK Max, if the colour wasn’t so essential.   This time, the colour was utterly essential, because I needed a very warm colour to shake up that end of the room.  I like that the dressing table is white and so practical.  I didn’t want a traditional dressing table anymore.   I had one of those before, I wanted something cozy, inviting and contemporary this time.  

The opulent feature wall meant I needed to accessorise with vibrant jewel-like colours, so I found that gorgeous Vietnamese turquoise box at TK Max and the gilded budgies.  I think the budgies are hysterical and I complemented them with a crystal tea light goblet thingy on the other side, to catch the light. The key themes are location, colour, space and de-cluttered peace.  

The storage unit is from Ikea, my daughter chose it and the boxes, knowing the bedroom would be Moroccan soon.  I was very pleased she did that, because I saw the potential in that storage unit as a dressing table right away and luckily found just the right mirror to complement the feature wall at the other end of the room.  

Ok, so here is the blank canvas, still completely...um blank.  Well, all I can say is, we’ve had such dark, dreary weather, no one in their right mind could conjure up the North African climate to get the colours right.  Also, another thing happened.  DH decided to become a little tiresome about what would actually be in the painting.  I found this at first, interesting, then, somewhat annoying.  He’s being funny about all this change I’ve imposed anyway, so I decided to give him some time to adjust.  But its a little more tricky than that.  I think that because the room is so successful, he’s now doing that very male thing, which is to become territorial.  

In all honesty, the wall is so good, the painting I’m supposed to do is now....um scary!  Not scary scary, but scary decisions, type of scary.  Should it be very colourful, as I first imagined it, or should it somehow tie in with the effect of the feature wall?  The jury is still out and my knees are knocking...

If I have to,  I will wait until the spring to decide, because that’s exactly what happened when we were trying to decide on bathroom tiles.  November’s low light conditions is no time to choose colours.  What I think I will do though, is paint some pieces of paper in single colours and cut them up and move them around on the canvas, to see if they work or whatever.  As I mentioned before, I have 4 images that I’m working from.  

Ok, and here is the other piece that I‘ve put up.  It looks even better on the wall than in the shop and does exactly what I wanted it to do, which is to remind me of Moroccan plasterwork and all its wonderful intricacies, it looks like stone carved into lace.  I bought it in The Range, love that shop!

 I bought all my paints, by the way, at Wilko.  We do so love our darling Wilko over here.  Their paints are fabulous and last year I did three rooms in Wilko paints, including painting the kitchen cupboards with chalk paint and sealing them with lacquer.  

All of that turned out very well, even though for the kitchen I had to apply a whopping 160 coats of paint, luckily with a mini roller.  (What’s really interesting, is my neighbour is now doing the same to her kitchen, but has called in a specialist company to do the work called ‘Funk up my furniture’.  Love that name!)

So the piece below is quite heavy in weight, but not as heavy as the mirror.  I’m the one round here that hangs everything, and this time I had to use a self-drilling nylon fixing that was going into a hollow wall.  Again, Wilko are fantastic for those things, because they always have the max weight of a fixing printed on the pack.  Takes the guess work out of so much stuff like this.  

I am going to speak very quickly about drilling into walls...  OK, so I will mark a cross, push in a bradawl, then use the thinnest drill piece to make a pilot hole.  Then I will go in with a wider drill bit, then finally, with the drill bit I need for that fixing.  This means I always manage to drill straight.  Drilling straight is hard and that’s my solution anyway. 

So, going back to the desk I’m up-cycling.

It’s an old Schrieber desk with matching chair made in GDR when I was 12.  Goodness, that’s how old the thing is!  I must confess, I wanted to donate it to charity, but I tested it fully for creaks, rocking and generalised weakness and ppl, let me tell you, there is NONE!  Same for the chair.  Now the thing is this, it looks really ‘industrial’ and that’s something I just adore and its another theme that’s very hot in interior design now.  Industrial, distressed, aged, bashed up, concrete, rusted metal, you name it, the legacy of our industrial past is now fertile style-ground in the world of interiors.  

So, today I took it apart and hauled it downstairs, tomorrow I’m going to strip it and go at it with a wire brush like a thing possessed.  Wish me luck ppl, there’s a lot hanging on the Schrieber revamp.  It has two drawers and a colossal modesty board.  I wanted to get rid of them, but I think the drawers could offer a chance for something interesting, perhaps in contrast to the treatment of the top?  And the modesty board adds stability to the desk and the last thing I want is after all this work for the desk to start wobbling, creaking or to inadvertently feel flimsy.  This is no flimsy desk, it weighs a ton and I can’t wait to give it a new lease of life...

Oh, one last thing, here is a close-up of the stencil wall, because I wanted you to see the adorable purple up close..

The Moroccan bedroom is done

Oh wow, what an interlude.

I’m very happy with what the decorator did.  He created something quite stunning and dare I say opulent.

Now I wasn’t expecting that, so now I have to reverse the relationship: wall now opulent, painting needs to be distressed. 

There was no way I could make the decorator, who is worth his weight in gold, understand that I wanted vintage, faded, handmade or distressed.  None of those words were part of his artistic output. 

The guy worked for 5 hours solid on my feature wall, which can only be described as stunning.

DH is dead chuffed, which was a very nice surprise and not expected, at all. 

So, I had to up my game, as they say.

Now, finally, for the fun part..... the canvas!

I’ve got some very serious ideas now, I’ve narrowed things down to 3 images that I’m either going to combine, or change somewhat, I’m not sure yet.  

The stencil itself was amazing to work with. There are crisp lines of contours and I’m so relieved that I chose a gold furniture paint that turned out to be a really great shade of gold,  not too yellow, or green, or orange.

I did have to spend more on materials than I thought, but I’m after a particular look, so that’s to be expected.

So here is one photo for you...

When the sun comes in the room, I’m in Morocco, which is just what I was after....to be transported.

It’s also very nice at night, because it’s so special and inviting.  

You can see it’s ‘Deeply Plum’ in the background and two layers of gold via the stencil.  I was not expecting two layers of gold, so this is where the decorator started having his own ideas.

This is OK, because I have to give it to the guy, he never forgot the context in which he was working e.g. a bedroom, and that is a serious professional.  In my mind, I was thinking art, distressed, stage sets, atmosphere etc etc.  In other words my ideas in my imagination were lofty and risky.  He took the idea and ran with it, as they say and I’m relieved that it turned out so well.

So I had to go back to the shops and raid TK Max for a better class of accessories. More about that next time.

Audios ppl, stay safe, stay strong....stay sane xxx