l a d y   m a r y

I knew when I found this piece I wanted to make her fancy. 

I didn't go cottage style with this one.

She is regal. And well, since I am obsessed with Downton Abbey I would name her Mary. She is strong and pretty at the same time. She is also imperfect.

The base is ASCP in Pure White and the body of the piece is a mix of a dark grey I had {an old oops can} and Martha Stewart, School House Slate.

The knobs are from my collection at home and I painted them with a gold acrylic.

She will get one more coat of wax and buff before I get her into the shop. I wanted to take a picture of her before the sun went away!

v a n i t y 

This is the first vanity I have painted for the store. 

The base of the vanity was actually my daughter's, but it was just sitting in her closet not getting used.

I had the mirror from another project and I figured they would would be cute together. 

I used ASCP in Pure White as the color and papered the drawer fronts. 

Isn't it sweet? Off to the store it goes! 

b e a d  b o a r d     w a l l 

Today was the first day in over a month that I didn't work and I didn't have my kids. I decided to tackle a project that I have been wanting to complete for a long time.

Over the holidays I took out my sun/reading room and made the area into a playroom for my son Cooper. I was tired of the toys all over the entryway, his room is too small for him to play, and basically that sun room looked pretty but didn't get use. This playroom get the best light in the house and is a great area for Cooper. I am still working on the room but I will show you after I get it completed.

I wanted a way to hide the mess and give Cooper some privacy. I decided to hang a wall of beadboard doors. I got the doors from a salvage store and screwed them right together with the hinges that were already attached to the doors.. I hung them from the ceiling by eye hooks and heavy duty twine. the doors are also sandwiched between a sofa on one side and a desk on the other. They are very sturdy. 

I painted it out with a custom mix of colors that I just happened to have in my stash.

I adore it. I think it turned out amazing. Let's see what my husband and kids say when they get home tonight!

{all images in this post taken from this source}

I think this is the most appropriate word to describe my month. The truth is in the job that I do with painting, staging, and blogging, I need to be alone to focus. This is not what life had in store for me this month. It has been raining so I can't paint outside and my studio is separate from my house. Now normally it is great to have a separate studio, but not when the kids are home with me. I don't feel comfortable leaving them alone in the house while I am in the studio painting. We also have had a variety of sickness rotating around our family and then came the craziness of the holidays. Also,  am nearing the end of the year so I have been keeping my inventory lean {not a lot of painting projects going on} for tax purposes. 

At first I really embraced the pause. 

This year I opened a shop, crazy! I needed a pause. 

I needed time to reflect on my success and learn from my failures.

The funny thing was when I sat back and relaxed {not constantly painting and bringing in 20 pieces of painted furniture to the store every week} I sold better!

December was my second highest furniture sales in all of 2012. 

I also realized I can't stock my area of the the store by myself. I have a small group of really talented painters consigning with me. I am still very very hands on with my store vision but I can't do it all.

The truth is I started not to enjoy my job. I put too much pressure on myself. I needed to realize that I might not do this job forever so I needed to appreciate it now!

It is a bit daring to take a pause. In this fast pace world if you pause, you might as well fall off the map. If you don't keep up you lose relevance {crazy but true}. I watched my blog stats dive and I had to be ok with it. 

I have no idea what 2013 has in store for me. While most people have a million goals to expand their businesses, I have the opposite. I am going to focus on what I am good at, painting furniture. I guess I should clarify my last statement. I am open to doing more, I am patiently praying and waiting for open doors. If they don't open  I will keep working hard, it might just mean I am right where I am supposed to be.