Wandering to Warrenton

Too busy lately! This summer has been a blur of organizing my own house. I came home from Lucketts and went "What am I doing in here?" Since then it has been a flurry of getting things out and bringing things in. I pitched the entire design concept for my dining room (Spanish Colonial) that I had been planning on for the last 15 years and decided to go with a modified Vintage Chic style with just a touch of California Style to keep my Western heart happy. There are several blog posts coming on the various pieces I have collected and refinished for that room. Most will be furniture redo posts about a blue sideboard, an oak filing cabinet, and a large maple corner cabinet, complete with dreams of laser cut tentacle book ends. But that's not this post.

This post is about a little field trip I went on, or rather... stumbled upon.

My husband is quite immersed in the space world, at least the part that the government pays for. So he came home one day and announced that we were all going out to Great Meadow to see the national high school championships of model rocket launching. I know, I know, you all are sitting there going "Huh?" with a puzzled look on your face. But it really was fun. And I have a12 year old who is considering Astro-Physics as a career, so I had to go, right?

Anyway, we're sitting out there in this gloriously lush grass, watching these kids blow things up in the sky, and two random thoughts occur to me simultaneously. 1) I need Old Violet chalk paint to finish the project I was in the middle of due to running out that morning and 2) we were pretty far out the 66 corridor and I knew that this cute stockist named Janet had a shop out this way. So I did what all Luddites with tech-y husbands would do: I had him google her shop to find out where it was (the miracle here being that I remembered the name). It turned out to be literally up the street about 10 miles. So off we went!

We found the shop (at the time, a section in an antiques mall called Fox Den Antiques in Warrenton, VA. Janet is about to open her own shop this month called the Empty Nest, just like her blog. Read about her impending grand opening here) and bribed the kids with ice cream if they promised not to touch anything. Janet wasn't there, but I rounded a corner... and saw it! The very piece that had inspired me to start chalk painting!

Isn't it darling?

(I talked about it in my first chalk paint post here and Janet has way better pictures of it along with a mini tutorial on her blog entry about it here)

She had a bunch of other cute things, including this AMAZING wooden bench that I lamely forgot to take pictures of. What? I was too excited about seeing my inspiration piece. You know how I get.

Anyway, I pulled myself together and found my paint. Thank heavens she had it in stock. I tend to go a little nuts if I have to wait to finish a project I am feeling driven to complete. So right next to the paint is my other favorite of her projects, the striped dresser with a mariner's star.

If my memory serves me right,  I believe the lower picture best represents the actual colors. Don't you just love the creativity here? That's what I love about Janet. Her stuff is just so fresh and outside the box, yet still approachable and functional. This piece just kills me with those teeny drawers done with stripes. I would never have thought of that. I think she did this piece for the Annie Sloan conferences she taught at in March and April.

Well, long story short, I got my paint and saw some great pieces of furniture to further inspire. And, yes, my kids all refrained from touching the antiques and all got to have ice cream. It was definately a happy ending.