Folk art buffet

Holy cow, guys.  I suck at updating this blog anymore.  I am so.freaking.busy.  My kitchen's still not done, but it's getting soooooo close.  Soon.  Soon.  I took a break while my husband was away for a couple weeks and re-did my master bathroom.  I've upholstered a handful of chairs, and I'm making two adorable little sheep costumes for Halloween.

Somewhere in there, we had a huge order at the shop.  A couple came in a bought a ton of furniture, including this buffet I had posted a while back:

However, they wanted it re-painted in a folk art style.  The only direction I was given was that they wanted the fun colors found in the shop, and that I had total creative freedom.  Let me tell you- that stressed me out.  Crazy bad.  I have never, never, ever painted anything in that style...and this was a big piece.

I did a lot of searching.  Lately, I love herringbone, so I knew I wanted to incorporate that.  Otherwise, I found this rug, and bought it for my own living room...only to be told two weeks later it was out of stock and my money was going to be refunded...so I used it as inspiration as well.  I know it's hard to see in the pictures I've posted before, but these are "shop" colors if ever there were any.

Before I show you the process though, let me show you where we began (or close to it).

I stripped three layers of veneer of this buffet, filled it, and sanded it before it was ever painted blue.  Let's just say that when they told me I had to repaint it, and in such a crazy style for me, I wanted to cry a little.

I started out by enlarging the design, and mirroring it in half to get it the size I wanted.  Then I used carbon paper to trace the design to the top.  From there, I painted...

And painted...

And painted...

And painted (and CLEARLY did not clean...) 

And slowly...

It was transformed.

Into a crazy bright, fun, folk art buffet...complete with six coats of poly...

and big glass knobs, and original hoop pulls on the drawers.

I probably spent over 200 hours painting this thing.  In the end, I was proud of it, because it'd become my baby...but I have to admit- I have no desire to paint like this again.  I'm sad that the final picture I have of it was taken at night, blown up by artificial light, but it's what I have.  The buffet has been delivered to it's new owners, who are in love, and packing it and an entire storage shed of furniture purchased from our shop (Flea Market to Fabulous) to their new home in South Carolina.

Hopefully I'll be back sooner than later with some more updates...but who ever knows with two kids, all this painting, and a husband as busy as could be!

Sharing with:
Miss Mustard Seed FFF
The Dedicated House
Beyond the Picket Fence