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Scrap to Sign

Sometimes I have leftover pieces of wood from a project that I hang on to just in case. I decided to try my hand at making a sign out of this one.

I planned out the text I wanted on my computer instead of sketching and marking up the clean piece of wood. With carbon paper, I transferred the printed text to the wood. Since I wanted the sign to look well worn, I left it unsanded before painting it.

I painted the black lines first then filled in the word "home" using a beige crackle finish. At this point I sanded the lettering so it would look more aged. Next I stained the whole piece wiping off more stain in some areas than others.

Voila...an antique sign you could have picked up at a country flea-market!

Sugar Shack!

It has become a tradition over the past few years for my friends and I to celebrate my birthday over a delicious meal at a sugar shack. This year we went to Érablière Charbonneau in Mont Saint-Grégoire, 35 minutes south of Montreal.

The scenery is beautiful here, the maple trees surround the sugar shack and all have their buckets collecting the sap.

Sap dripping from the tapped maple tree.

Inside the rustic country decor is beautiful, antique chairs line the long tables.

The hanging lanterns add to the rustic atmosphere, love them.

As soon as we sat down, they started putting out the spread. The traditional Québécoise meal consists of homemade preserves, coleslaw, pea soup, potatos, omelet, tortière pockets (meat pies), sausages, ham, les oreilles de crisse (pork rinds), creton (meat spread), and of course baked beans.

And then the dessert came...we sampled everything, the sugar pie, buckwheat pancakes, crêpes and pastries. Everything got a generous pouring of warm maple sauce...yumm!!

As we slowly made our way to the parking lot feeling stuffed, we made one last stop to sample some tire (mapple taffy on the snow).

I sure got my sugar fix for the year!

Neglected to New

This armoire that was built in 1938 had been negledted for many years. It was kept at a cottage and was covered with stickers by several kids that used it over the years. My client had imagined refinishing this piece for years but never got around to it.

I had a lot of work to do to remove years of use but once I stripped the old finish, sanded and did lots of filling and repairs it started to come back to life.

This armoire had always been used as extra clothing storage at their cottage but my client now wanted to use it in her dining room to display her favorite dish set.

With a jig-saw I cut a hole in the door leaving about 2" of wood around. I measured and had glass cut for the new window. I framed the door with some wood trim that had a similar detail to the rest of the piece. At first the new trim stood out against the old door but once it was all stained it, looked as if it had always been there! We chose glass shelves for the inside to let more light through.

We kept the original hardware and cleaned it up a little. It really stands out now next to the dark stain.

For the color, my client wanted this armoire to be refinished with a dark stain to go with other dark furniture she had. 

I started off by using a dark wood oil stain to bring out the grain of the wood.

Next, to get an even darker treatment, I thinned some dark brown artist's oil paint with turpentine and and painted it on like a wash revealing the wood grain underneath through the brush strokes. This treatment was a perfect solution in the end because it hid all of the imperfections and patching I had to do.

Now this armoire has gone from neglected to new!