Little Red Window

Painted Furniture: Beginnings (aka Unconventional Babyproofing)

Kids, Painted Furniture

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We came to my hometown this weekend to visit with friends and go to the local fireworks and festival.  Our town has a little carnival down by the community center that I went to every year when I was growing up.  It’s no state fair, just a tilt-a-whirl, a tiny ferris wheel, a few other rides and some games to lose money on.  Oh and a giant beer tent.  Which I’m sure is where they make most of their money. Anyway, we didn’t really do the carnival this year, just walked down from my parents’ house to find a good place to watch the fireworks with a couple of my best friends from childhood and have a picnic (and enjoy free grandparental babysitting!)  It turned out that a friend of ours from high school was sitting a few blankets over and she came to say hello.  It was nice to catch up–I don’t think I’ve seen her since high school although we are Facebook friends.  One of the first questions she asked me was, “so what are you up to?  are you still painting furniture?”  (apparently I haven’t changed much, ha!)

Well the answer is yes, yes I am.  Although now I have to figure out how to do it in my small, poorly ventilated condo instead of my parents’ driveway.  But before I share some of my more recent projects I wanted to show you one of the first pieces of furniture I ever transformed and how it’s holding up.
My mom and dad have always been my biggest supporters in my crafty endeavors.  They have seen a ton of crazy projects over the years (I’m sure not all were so great) and in the way parents do, they have kept just about everything I ever made.  But when I was in Eighth grade (I think) I decided my bedroom was just WAY too boring. You know how middle schoolers are, I just could not stand it one more second.  I had this old four poster double bed that I think had once been our old neighbor’s Grandma’s bed or something.  It had a thick brown finish, was kind of creaky and in my middle school mind was just not cool.  I decide to paint it. Perhaps heavily influenced by Claudia, the fashionista from the Babysitters Club books, I went with a black, white and red color scheme.  There were polka dots and splatter paint (it was the 90’s after all)   and I loved it.
At some point after I went to college they got a new bed frame, turned my room into a guest room and the old rickety (and colorful) bed went down in the basement.  But now the footboard of the bed has found a new life.  My mom, in advance of our most recent visit, asked my dad to put up a baby gate outside so that O could play on their deck without them worrying about the steep stairs that go down to the yard.  When we got here, this is what I saw:
(Clearly my dad is where I get my ability to think outside the box!)  It’s actually holding up just fine outside and in a quirky Madison-y kind of way I kind of think it works!  If nothing else, it’s a great pop of color and a fond memory.
Cassie May
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  2. Philip Heckman says

    It’s a flower bed, honey.

    My all-time favorite is still the wooden chair that you découpaged with the faces of artistic giants such as Duke Ellington. An interesting record of your teenage pantheon.

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