More White Booth Photos

We are now calling ourselves The B Hive.  Bees are also symbolic of hard work and industry as represented by the common phrase "busy as a bee." To see bees in your dream, symbolizes wealth, good luck, harmony, creativity and bliss.  Alternatively, the dream represents the things that are happening in your life or something that is buzzing with activity.That seemed to be a good fit for us.

This venture has already proved very successful.  Things are flying out of the booth. There are six of us and every time one of us goes to the shop, the booth needs fluffing because things sold and left empty holes in the vignette.   We're going to have a real hard time keeping it full.

Here are some more photos -

Martie's white table sold.  She has another ready to go.

The ceiling tiles at the top of the peg wall all sold.

Cynthia mantle looks great!

My rabbit chairs on either side of Kathy's vintage desk sold.

The White Booth - Phase 2

Below are some more photos of the white booth.  Don't get too comfortable with this look.  Things are already changing.  There were 4 of us in the group.  Now there are 6 and we are doubling our space.  It's great.  You can see the floor and wall are already painted in a couple of the photos.  Moving day is tomorrow.  Hopefully I'll have another post of photos for you soon.

The White Booth - Phase 1

I am now part owner of a second booth at Rockin' B Antiques.  There are lots of vendors there that I have a good time with.  They have loads of talent and personality.  Five of us -  (Nicole, Martie (my boothmate in booth #1), Cynthia, Kathy, and, of course, me as #5) somehow came together with a fun booth idea I've been thinking of for some time.

Back in November, I helped to set up what I called The Winter White Booth at the front of the store.  It was so pretty and really did well.  Since that feature booth was dismantled, the white on white market has not being tapped very well at Rockin' B.  A month or two ago, I pitched the idea to the decorating team that they should have a feature booth up front that stays set up with mostly tones of whites and creams and an accent color that changes.  They didn't exactly jump at the idea, so I pitched it to some other gals who happen to need a little more booth space and the rest is history.  The whole deal has come to fruition so fast and easy, that I know it's the right thing to do.  And... I'd say the white on white market is now TAP DANCING at Rockin' B!

It's in the Starter Booth phase right now and already looks AMAZING.  And we're selling out of it about as fast as we can decorate.  In fact, we're hoping to talk to the owner today about expanding the space.  We need a little more room for some more big pieces.

The pictures in this post are the results of just Nicole and I playing around.  This is before we have all our major pieces ready - two hutches are coming soon.  We pulled all sorts of little shelves and things in.  We  wanted to quickly set up the booth to look as finished as possible so we could start selling.

Yesterday, I stopped by and saw the booth after Cynthia put her English / French things in and truly, I swooned.  I don't have photos of that yet, but I plan to take lots today, so stay tuned for updates.  Martie and Kathy will be putting their touches on it today, too.

We have a schedule planned out for monthly accents.  This month, our accent color is green.

Without further ado, here are some photos from Phase 1 -

Oh my gosh.  Seeing these photos and knowing how much better it looks now makes me hesitant to even publish these.  Come back in day or two and you'll see what I mean!  Come back in a month or so and you'll see lots of other cool ideas we are working on!

Last, but not least, I woke up to an exciting email this morning from Stephanie at Under the Table and Dreaming! She featured my porch rockers redo on her blog!  I'm famous!  Would anyone like an autograph?

Update:  

We now have a blog about The B Hive (our white booth)!

Mr. Wheat's Rockers

Mr. Wheat replaced his front porch rockers.  He gave the four old ones to me.  The bones were good and sturdy but had definitely seen better days.  Time for a bit of rocker resuscitation!

The first step was to remove all the seat rushing.  This was no small task.  It was messy and dusty.  Mr. Wheat keeps a spotless home, but anytime furniture is left outside, even on a covered porch, the are places that even a clean freak can't clean.  Between the rushes is one of those places.

Next I painted the rockers white.  Painting chairs and rockers is very tedious, so I decided this was a fine time to finally try out my new power spray paint gizmo.

That may have been my first and last time using a power sprayer.  I have a love/hate relationship with the thing.

LOVE:

• It covers in no time.  

HATE:

• It uses up paint at a shocking rate.  
• Each time the container gets a little low (which is very, very often), the paint spits out, making blobs that need to be touched up immediately.  
• At one point I didn't screw the container on correctly and when I picked up the sprayer, the container dropped and paint went everywhere.  
• I used three large dropcloths.  (The photo above doesn't show them all.  I had already started moving stuff when I remembered to take a photo.)  Three dropcloths was not enough.  
• The sprayer should not be used when there's any wind at all.  
• The sprayer needs to be cleaned up very, very well, otherwise it won't work well the next time you use it.  It takes a long time and a lot of water to clean all the parts. 
• By the end I was exhausted and covered in paint from head to toe.  I am not a power sprayer kind of girl.  I'll stick to my nice and slow and slightly meditative old fashioned painting.  But the chairs turned out great.

Note - If you had two very organized people working together and you had a lot of things you wanted to paint the same color and  if you were willing to use up a lot of paint and if you had a great place to paint with lots of drop-cloths, the power sprayer could be a very good thing.

Once the paint had thoroughly cured, it was time to weave the seats and back. 

I have a chair-weaving tutorial in a previous post.

Even though I stuck to a color palette of red, green, tan, and white, the pattern is still a little busy.  I'm not worried.  Once I add pillows and cushions, not so much of the pattern will show up.  Meanwhile, the pattern hides dirt and fur.

Once I sat in the chairs, I realized that they weren't all that comfortable.  They could use some cushions.  Not a problem.  I came across four old cushions at a yard sale that fit perfectly.

 

The cushions are weathered and worn, but that didn't concern me.  I'm planning to make covers for them in a pretty fabric.  That means I can't mark this project off my list.  I also want to add small pillows on the chairs.  That's not a huge rush.  I'm keeping my eye out at yard sales.  Maybe I'll even come across some that don't need to be re-covered! 

I have shared this post on the following link parties:

Saturday Nite Special at Funky Junk Interiors

Favorite Things Saturday at Bargain Hunting with Laurie 
Weekend Wrap Up Party at Tatertots and Jello  

Sunday Showcase at Under the Table and Dreaming 

Martie and Bob go to the Opera Ball

Martie is my booth-mate at Rockin' B.  This past weekend she and her husband, Bob, went to the Opera Ball in Washington DC.  Martie emailed a few links about the ball and her daughter found Martie and Bob in one of the photos.  They are famous!!! 

Don't you just love the scarf that Martie is wearing?  That's how her daughter was able to spot her.

I circled Martie and Bob.  Click here for more photos of the ball.  This photo was the last one on page 2.

Vintage Tumblers

When I say vintage tumblers, I'm not talking about an old acrobatic troupe.  I'm talking about drinking glasses.  Collectors call them tumblers.  I also hear them called Swanky Swigs.

I am a novice collector.  If an expert (or even an intermediate collector) reads this and sees something I have wrong, I would appreciate corrections!  My collection has begun because I want some color in my glass front cabinets. 

I love retro, so these colorful glasses are perfect.  I enjoy an eclectic look and am not at all concerned with having matching sets. My main criteria is that I find the design and colors appealing. As you can see from the photo above, I even have a Tervis Tumbler in a retro design alongside the vintage glassware.  My easy criteria makes it pretty simple to build a collection I like.  I started a few months ago and am pretty pleased with what I have so far.

As I'm collecting, I'm trying to learn a little about these fun glasses.  Glasses were easy to come back back in the 1940's and 50's and a bit beyond.  Companies used to offer a premium for buying their product. This came mostly in the form of a drinking glass. Sour cream, jelly, peanut butter, spreadable cheese all had glass giveaways. The product usually came right in the glass.  Often gas stations would give a free tumbler with a fill up. Glasses even came in boxes of laundry detergent!  I remember growing up with lots of what we referred to as jelly glasses.  Who knew that years later they would be so popular.  The good news is that they are still fairly easy to find and they aren't too pricey.  Best of all, they are such fun to drink out of.  I love having multiple designs to suit my moods.

Geraniums on the Window Sill

I found three very pretty metal planters at a yard sale a few weeks ago.  They were perfect for a project on my to-do list.  I have thought of having several geraniums on my kitchen window sill for awhile and now I finally have them... in the perfect containers for the space.

Yeah baby!!!  I love them.

Blue Yard Bench

I bought a weathered old bench at an auction back in March.  It's a bit worn, but has good bones.  One of these days, my hubby will probably redo it, but for now, I just wanted to use it in the yard for a bit of color.

I started my redo by spray painting the metal bits black.  They had been a dark green.

Then I brushed on the blue - Behr Ultra in Glass Sapphire.  See this post for my bench inspiration.

I'm hoping to find two planters to put on each side of the bench.  A couple of ferns or pretty flowers would look nice there.  I see this bench from the windows on the back of my house.  I hope to keep improving that view over time.