vinyl + chrome = love

Danaannie sloan chalk paint, beach house, before and after, chrome, furniture, paint, painting, retro, selling, trash to treasure, upholstering, upholstery, vinyl 1 Comment

We’re just barely back from our honeymoon. Still organizing life and most importantly all of our Brimfield finds! However I couldn’t leave you hanging without a little dose of Circa Dee.

I’ve got a before & after for you from the archives. I can’t hardly believe that I’ve never properly shared this project with you. It is definitely one of my favorites around here. In fact, there has been a debate on whether or not we should keep it for ourselves. We don’t actually need this adorable retro dinette table & chairs however it fits in perfectly at the beach. And we happen to have an open space for it. Hmmm…

updated retro dinette (2 of 23)

Of course I didn’t take a proper before shot. More like an in progress shot after we started taking the chairs apart. As you can see they were covered in the original vinyl which was in bad shape. And then there was newer vinyl (not pictured) haphazardly tacked on over the original.

Off it all came! The chairs got updated with my modern spin on the original vinyl – bright aqua marine grade vinyl. So fun!

updated retro dinette (18 of 23)

Don’t you just want to sit down?

updated retro dinette (10 of 23)

Now for the table… I love the original table. Nice and solid. What you can’t really see are all of the dings, filth and general wear & tear. So ultimately we stripped it with the intent to stain the original wood with a more modern dark color.

But at the end of the day we settled on a couple of coats of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in graphite. I think it adds another modern punch that coordinates with the bright chairs very well. I topped it off with a couple of cots of furniture wax. It has a nice smooth finish.

updated retro dinette (12 of 23)

And check out all of those legs! We cleaned and shined up all of that chrome which really gives off the retro vibe. All of that gorgeous chrome is the feature that is saving the table from staying in our home. We have all brass accents so the chrome has to go! Too bad for us but maybe good for you?

updated retro dinette (8 of 23)

Wouldn’t you like to have a glass of wine at this table?

updated retro dinette (20 of 23)

Linking to: Miss Mustard Seed

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February 27, 2013home, treasure

another mantel to scape

Danabeach house, before and after, coastal, collection, furniture, living room, mantel, mid-century, shutters 2 Comments

Yes, you heard right. There is another mantel in my life. No, I’m not cheating on my first mantel.

art deco coastal mantel

I firmly believe you can never have too many mantels. And you don’t need a fireplace to go with said mantel. A really great mantel will add character and speak for itself. Like this art deco one that I alluded to on Monday. Check out the lines. And the subtly distressed wood. Love the imperfections.

art deco coastal mantel

As promised, beside the mantel sits my new favorite mid-century tweed swivel chair with brass tips. And a box of driftwood for good measure.

mid-century tweed swivel chair

This vintage/coastal vignette is the new focal point of our beach house living room. As our home should, it feels like the perfect mix of both Ryan and me.

vintage coastal living room/mantel vignette

This room is large in scale and was in dire need of further updating to get to this point.

Here’s the back story and before shot.

I’ll be honest, I had a mini-bridezilla moment a few months ago when I realized Ryan would be getting ready here for our wedding which means photographers would be set up in THIS ROOM! It wasn’t ready! This is what the furnished space originally looked like when we moved in 3 years ago…

living room before

It is like a time warp of someone’s grandmother’s house in 1992. I began tearing down the thick vinyl wallpaper about 2 days in. I couldn’t take it. We did however embrace all of the wood trim. I know most people would have walked in and painted everything white and called it a beach cottage. We are going for a “rustic boathouse” look in this bungalow hence natural woods, brass, blues & greens.

D for drywall & dana

After removing the wallpaper, we painted (and discovered a hidden D!). I believe the blue we chose is called January Frost by Valspar.

painting

And from there, we just moved those hideous couches back in their places and went to the beach for the next couple of years I suppose. Slowly the side tables and things got changed out but the couches stuck around for far too long. Ryan tried to convince me that they were vintage but they weren’t what I had in mind and we both agreed that they were very uncomfortable. Last fall we found a comfy sectional for the space and then things really started to evolve around it.

coastal cottage living room

A lantern turned lamp with a modern shade got added to the mix.

vintage lantern turned lamp

Green shutters from Phantastic Phinds flank either side of the window. There are lots of aqua touches throughout the room. I will share the other half of the space in the near future.

art deco beach house mantel

I found this cage 2 summers ago and turned it into a coffee table with casters and a piece of glass. It houses an anchor and other rotating coastal treasures.

vintage cage turned coffee table

Let’s get back to the mantel though. The inaugural coastal mantelscape is a bit monochromatic. I already have some plans to brighten it up for spring but let’s review…

vintage ship wheel

I found that large picture at a consignment shop a few years back. It is actually a woodburning of a lighthouse scene.

lighthouse woodburning

The vintage bookends are new to us. We seem to be collecting ship captains around here like our Gorton’s Fisherman painting that now hangs across the room. And the old man Ryan needlepoint. I love them all!

fisherman bookends

But doesn’t it look like this captain is wearing lipstick? Hey, whatever floats your boat! Ha, get it? Boat. Captain. Ok…

ship captain bookend

That wraps up where we are with this space at the moment. More to come I’m sure! I am already looking for an updated lamp shade for the ship wheel sconce on the left that I purchased from another vendor at West End Garage.

art deco coastal mantel

What’s currently on your mantel?

Linking to:

October 31, 2012musing

frankenstorm

Danabeach, beach house, Cape May, neighborhood 13 Comments

Happy Halloween everybody! It sure looks spooky around these parts thanks to the wrath of Hurricane Sandy – dubbed Frankenstorm here in the northeast. On Monday, I posted a bit panicked about how our favorite coastal town of Cape May, New Jersey would fair. Well, I am here to report that Cape May won the battle with Sandy. Hooray!

Unfortunately our neighbors to the north did not make out as well as Cape May. My heart goes out to all of those folks just up the coast.

Ironically our home town to the west in Pennsylvania seemed to be more battered than Cape May as well. We lost power in PA on Monday evening and as of writing this have not had it restored just yet. Our town is full of beautiful, mature trees – one of the draws of the neighborhood. However, not all of the trees withstood the wind gusts. Some toppled over on our power lines. We were nervous for the large trees surrounding our house but they all stood strong.

After about 36 hours without electric and heat we decided to venture back east to Cape May. That is when we learned that ironically the coastal town was in better shape than our Montgomery county town.

And that we had internet. Hooray again!

It is amazing what lack of electricity can do. I forgot what day it was, never knew the time and flicked the light switch on a ridiculous amount of times out of habit. Living in the dark is not fun. Oh and neither is wearing 2 pairs of pants to sleep.

Anyway, back to the positive news around Cape May…

Boarded up beach houses suffered minimal damage

For the most part, sand dunes did their job as barrier

Only a few roads were sand covered

Everyone’s favorite Cape May landmark, Congress Hall, overlooks the sea

Sandy makes a grand exit leaving town with a show of clouds

A little bit spooky for Halloween

A flock of beautiful cranes bathed in the storm’s remnants

Again, I can’t stress how fortunate we are. We have some flooding around the house. Ok, our front yard is a pond but nothing we can’t manage compared to what others are experiencing.

I hope you are your family are safe, dry and warm this Halloween.

October 15, 2012treasure

just another manic monday

Danaaqua, beach house, junking, miss mustard seed milk paint, needlepoint, scales, shabby chic 2 Comments

After a fabulously gorgeous weekend in PA, it is a cold and rainy Monday. And that is A-ok with me. It is forcing me to stay in and catch up on some work. However, last week was pretty great for sourcing and selling vintage finds.

First let me tell you, yesterday was Clover Market…ahhmazing. As always. We had a fabulous crowd! Sunny skies and fun neighboring vendors too. My first customers of the day were from Massachusetts. (Hi girls!) They traveled to Philly all the way from Mass just to visit us at Clover. How cool is that? If you are considering making the trip, November 4th is the last Clover of the season! I guarantee you’ll find some unique holiday gifts and a few gems for yourself.

Prior to my frantic day-before-Clover prep, I took some time to shop and work on a room in my own house. It is no where near ready for a reveal but let me show you a few treasures that will be in the room.

I seriously fell in love with this needlepoint old man. Isn’t he sweet? When I first found him, I thought that I would sell him. (I’ve been on a vintage needlepoint kick lately.)

Then the more I looked at him, I knew he was a keeper. Now call me crazy but he totally looks like an old man Ryan. And my mom agrees. So call her crazy too. I mean seriously, I think this is what my fiance, Ryan, is going to age to look like. I’m pretty sure he even has that hat already. Ryan currently has a shorter, darker beard and the same blue eyes. We’ll check back with him in another 35 years.

So old man Ryan stays.

Next up is a corner hutch in fabulous aqua blue. We moved this guy right into the beach house living room to serve as a bar area. It took the place of an oversized dark bookshelf. The change really opened up the corner visually and invoked a little beach cottage whimsy with the color.

Funny thing is that the guy I bought this from kept telling me how I could refinish the paint but I thought that was the best part! I suppose I will fix the cabinet pull though.

I love scouting antique scales. This particular one is a fudge scale. The flat marble base is a great area for displaying books and things. I can’t keep everything though so I will probably sell this one.

I picked up this enamel top cabinet a few weeks back. It is pretty beat but I hope to revitalize it with Miss Mustard Seed milk paint soon.

So what did you do this weekend? Find any good vintage treasures?

I’ll be spending the rest of the week gearing up for our monthly sale this weekend at the Brick & Mortar. We’ll be rolling out the Miss Mustard Seed milk paint line. If you are a local DIYer, you must stop by Saturday or Sunday to see all of the wonderful colors and products! I may even have Miss Mustard Seed’s new book in stock too! I’ll keep you posted.

Linking to Mod Vintage Life, Apron Thrift Girl

April 11, 2012home

lighten up

Danaannie sloan chalk paint, beach house, before and after, diy, painting, trash to treasure 4 Comments

I want to thank everyone for all of the kind words and outpour of love. The response to our engagement as been just so overwhelming! I apologize that I haven’t responded to each comment, email and message individually. It is a very exciting time for us and we really appreciate the support!

Oh and you may be interested to see that I added a pic of me in the now infamous pink sweatpants on the engagement post. You can get a glimpse of us just minutes before the proposal and have a look-see at the atrocious pants. I also added the perfect sunset pic. Anyway, enough out about my poor fashion choice.

Back to some vintage treasures!

A simple project today! A little bit of paint goes a loooong way.

A couple of years ago I picked up this large, old trunk at a yard sale for dirt cheap. Since then it has played cocktail table on the screened in deck at our Cape May home. It has great features and I love the big dovetail construction. But it was the color of dirt.

On a whim last weekend, I decided it was time to de-dirtify the look of the trunk. The mousey brown just didn’t cut it. I dry brushed on some ASCP cream allowing the brown to still show through.

I went right over the hardware in some places but also allowed the grain of the wood to pop.

It really visually lightens the place up now as the cream color recedes right into the wall of the house. The trunk suddenly seems less bulky.

I love how the sides turned out.

To finish it off, I sanded with a fine grit sandpaper to smooth out the surface. No wax on this rustic piece!

Linking to: Restore Interiors

March 8, 2012home

navigating the atlantic

Danabeach house, diy, frames, maps, nautical guest room, painting 7 Comments

Last summer I found a fab map of the ocean from 1984 that shows how to navigate the Atlantic locally between New Jersey, Delaware & Maryland. Since I am not captaining a boat any time soon, I decided naturally it would look best framed at the beach house.

The bright map was destined for one of the bedrooms. The aqua of course is lovely and would make a nice addition to the master bedroom but the yellow plays into the nautical palette of red, blue and yellow in the guest room. It was a tough decision but it is now in the guest room. It helps as we need a few pops of color in there.

Here’s my assistant debuting the newly framed map…

After I allowed this map to sit around for months, Ryan took over and built a custom frame with scrap wood. We like to build frames here at Circa Dee if you haven’t noticed. The map is a unique size not found in retail frames. I think it was 22×24 inches so it had to be custom.

Ryan had the brilliant idea of using plexiglass on both sides of the map so that you can see the interesting details on the back about navigating the sea such as mileage and where stuff has sunk and stuff like that. Can you tell I don’t know anything about navigating the sea?

Ryan, please show us the back. Thank you.

Getting plexiglass cut is much quicker than getting regular glass cut. You can get plexiglass cut at your local hardware store on the spot. In my experience, it can take up to a week to get glass custom cut. However, glass is about half the price of plexiglass. You weigh the differences.

He secured the plexiglass in with Glazier’s points. I never knew what those little pointy things were called until now. And they’re brilliant. They come in a pack of 50 for a couple of bucks. Perfect for framing projects. You can also sneak a peek at some of the “stuff” on the back of the map.

Ryan totally owned this project. He painted the frame in “Butterfly” yellow which we got for free at the Ace Clark + Kensington paint promo on Saturday. Seriously, we go to Ace a whole heck of a lot. They know us there and even let us bring Wilson in.

So after 6 months of me doing nothing with this old map, Ryan swooped in and gave it a new home which I totally love…even if I have no idea how to read it…hopefully our guests will…and will come with a boat to take us out on!