Until a couple of years ago my parents had lived their entire married life never having owned a dog. Both of them liked dogs, but never really had any desire to own one.

Three years ago, I was volunteering at my local Humane Society when I came across a case that broke my heart. This grey mess of a dog was brought in so horribly matted and overgrown she barely even resembled a dog. She had been found wandering the streets and had obviously just given birth to puppies.  But it was her eyes that melted my heart.

The shelter had to shave her down, she was covered in scabs, infested with fleas, and looked terrible.  And, she was the most terrified animal I had ever seen.

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Ok, I’m officially starting my own blog. I’m not sure when I’m going to have time to do it or who is going to be interested in reading it, but here goes.

About six months ago, I started buying vintage furniture, redoing it, and then selling it on craigslist. I put the first piece on having no expectations of anyone really buying it. They did though, and lots more since then.

I have sold every piece I have finished and am getting decent prices for it. People keep telling me I’m selling things too cheap but the fact is, I want it to sell quickly. I have no place to store all of this stuff–something my husband tells me daily.

I’ve been thinking about contacting a place in town (Wichita, KS) that sells furniture like I do but they 1. are way on the other side of town, 2. take a pretty good-size commission, and 3. I have been selling my things so quickly that I would have to stockpile quite a few pieces to make the trip worthwhile, and then we come back to the storage issue again. So I guess for now I will keep doing things the way I have been since it seems to be working.

My goal for this blog is to share some tips, show some before and after photos, and have a place to list all of the items I have for sale.

If people are coming here looking for some expert advice they are coming to the wrong place. Most of what I do is complete trial and error. Most of the time what I envision a piece to be and what it actually turns out to be are two totally different things.

On almost every piece there seems to be some giant obstacle to overcome. Whether the paint turns out a different color, or there turns out to be 52 layers of paint to strip off, or something is so decorative and ornate that it takes me weeks (and millions of Q-tips and toothpicks to glaze).

Overall, I enjoy these projects (or at least most of these projects) and it’s a good way to earn a little extra money. My teenager is going to need a car in the next year and any extra money will come in handy.

Here is one of my first projects. I bought this old desk off craigslist. Originally I was going to paint it black. So I sanded it down (my least favorite part) layered on 3 coats of latex paint.

My dear hubby told me it would be fine to wax over latex, so that’s what I did. Did it work? Not so much

I buffed and buffed that thing but no matter what it looked like there was Vaseline smeared all over it. I was not happy. So then what?

I heard about chalk paint. I researched chalk paint but it turned out to be $42 a pint! Too steep for me. So I decided to make my own. Once I got a batch made up, I had no idea how it would do over a piece that already had been painted with latex and waxed. What did I have to loose?

I put two layers of the turquoise over the black and nothing disastrous happened. It was incredibly bright so I decided to make my own glaze and try it out. I used a black glaze over it and it toned it down just the right amount. I added some fun new handles and Ta Da!! It looked pretty darn good.