English Victorian Decorative Furniture & other stuff...plus one raging husband

Anyone who purchases

English 19th Century  pine furniture

will know how difficult the stuff is to find these days,

well, in any quantity that is.



ITEMS FROM ARUNDEL ECCENTRICS



Imagine my jubilation to find an auction selling only that.

Yes! the entire auction was of

Victorian Pine.

On the day, my ever patient ( er, not always)

husband Nass, told me several times

"be careful".

Of course, at the time I was led to believe he meant on the roads,

Hmm no, he meant in the saleroom.

I drove for 2 hours, cross country,
(praise be, for sat navs)
my destination right in the middle of no-where.

I arrived at the auction house
 and viewed the furniture in the barn adjoining the saleroom.

It was all pretty much in a mess, it must have come from a restorers storage room,

and was thick, thick,thick with dust.

I made a note of the items to watch and went into the main showroom where the

 items could be viewed on a huge tv screen.

And there, guvnor, was where I went wrong.

I was seduced by the prices and thought items looked pretty good on the screen.

On my way home I was chuffed to beans with myself!

Nass went to pick it up in the van I hired.

Now, it's jolly lucky I wasnt with him.

I suspect I would have been in grave danger of my life.

He returned, leaving a good half of it behind,

and he, himself, was coated with the thickest layer of dust I've ever seen on anyone.

He was RAGING!

Never seen him so mad......

We had to put the left pieces back into the next auction...he said on one item

 he went to touch it and his hand went straight through, it was falling so much apart.

He was right when he noted I hadnt even thought

WHERE I would store it and

HOW I would get it ll back!

Anyway....the items we kept after,

having a good clean off ,

are going to be gorgeous.

and it gave me the idea for the new addition to my website,

"STUFF IN THE ROUGH"

People can look at the items as they come in and before anything is done to them.

They can then say, waxed, painted, gilt decoupage...whatever.

The website has had a makeover and is full of items I have

 been manically working on in time for

Spring and Summer.

Flowers/fish/shells/country images

Do have a look, if you are interested in

19th century English furniture with a bit of a twist.

 www.arundeleccentrics.com

We will be at
Ardingly Antique Fair
in July
alongside the (now calm) husband
and his company
Harmony Trading.

Painting Vintage Furniture

 

If you have never done this before,

 it can appear to be a daunting task.

BUT

You can transform an item of furniture over a weekend,

particularly if the weather is on the warm side, 

when the paint will dry really quickly.

We can get onto more fancy stuff later on.

Here is the absolutely simplest way to get you started.

You will need:

Matt emulsion paint (latex)

sandpaper or a sander

brushes

antique wax such as Briwax or Mylands

(If the piece has been previously waxed you will need some white spirit)

buffing brush or cloth

fine wire wool

To remove wax from a piece of furniture,

you can use white spirit and cloth/kitchen roll.

However, it can be quite a long job doing it this way

and if you don't remove all the wax you

might have problems later on,

with the paint not having a good key to adhere to.

So,

if you don't possess a sander,

de-wax really methodically,

 and then sand with some fairly rough sandpaper.

 You should then get a good surface to work on.

I just prefer to get the sander out and really sand it within an inch of it's life!

Fill any cracks and holes, if you want to, and sand when dry.

I say should you want to, as you might want to

leave some of the signs of its age.
It's entirely up to you.

Now the fun starts.

 There are several ways of doing this and

it depends very much

 on

the look you are trying to achieve.

Let's  assume you want the piece to look as

though it has had years of paint and wear.

Always put on a fairly thin base coat.

Once dry, give it a light sand and give a second coat.

Then paint on a couple of coats of a contrasting colour.

You can give it fairly thin coats, and paint in one direction,

keeping it all very neat

OR

you can really bash on thick layers of paint,

working in different directions.

( then when you wax, the antiquing wax will sit in the ridges)

You can paint on several different colours in layers,

if you want to.

Give a gentle sand between coats.

When you are happy with the coats you have put on and its all dry,

start sanding around edges where the furniture

would have got most battered and worn.

If you have used several different colours,

 it can have a good effect here and you can also sand in
other "worn" areas, to show all the colours underneath.

It's up to you how far you take it back and it might

be trial and error to get the exact look you are going for.

Just try to do it so it isnt too contrived looking and
what my dear friend Allie calls
"the Nellie Neat" look!

Waxing.

This is the exciting bit, when the paint takes on a mellow, aged look.

If your top colour is pale, you will find it gives a better finish to mix a little of the antique wax with white spirit and paint it on, a thin layer at a time.

Darker colours are fine using the wax neat, but if you do this on light colours, it comes up looking very dirty, rather than gorgeous and mellow.

You can either use a brush for this, or a cloth.

Dont worry if you put too much on and it looks to dark, or uneven. 

Just take some wax off with white spirit, until you get your desired colour.

Leave the wax to harden off a bit,

around 30 minutes.

You can then buff it up to a soft sheen with:

a furniture buffing brush

or 

a shoe brush

or a cloth

or

the fine wire wool

whatever you use

it just needs a bit of elbow grease!

Now...for the trade secret.

Take your fine wire wool, and work at extra buffing on the edges,

in fact all the areas which would be well worn.

I mean, really work on them.

You will see after a while what I mean when I say,
this gives the most wondrous finish,

as the furniture

feels so smooth and worn.

You will just want to keep touching it!

Make yourself a cuppa

or

pour a glass of wine

and 

stand back and admire your handiwork.

Arundel Eccentrics

are hoping to start their own

painting and decorating furniture courses.

Get in touch with us if you are interested.

If you have found this useful and want to take your

furniture decorating one step further

do let us know and we will try to help.

Spring and Summer stock

I am busily working on some new Spring Stock.

There really are just not enough hours in the day ...and I am back working at my grown up job tonight!

So apologies to anyone checking out the website, it needs desperately updating.

but..until I can get there to sort it out
here's a taster of new stock,

English Victorian Bamboo pieces

and 

Victorian Chests of drawers

Decorated and given a new lease of life.


Shells and fish, and botanical s, butterflies and dragonflies
amongst other things.

English Victorian bamboo, 
as well as our natural polished or
black painted bamboo, we have some white painted pieces,  decoupaged with English vintage documents and music.


Items that would look beautiful in a beach house. 

or

fitting in with more traditional surroundings

or

contemporary rooms.....

and just a little

....Eccentric


Trade Welcome any time
email us for prices


or if you live in the US 
and like our things
email us and we will let you know 
where our items are stocked near to you





English Victorian Chest of Drawers with fish decoupage

English Victorian bamboo table, circa 1860, painted in old ochre
and with botanical decoupage

English Victorian bamboo cabinet circa 186o

http://www.arundeleccentrics.com/
or for up to date
New Spring Stock

Arundel News....Colin Heriot

Many people in Arundel will know 

Colin Heriot.

He's been a councillor for many years

and in 2008

was Mayor of Arundel.

Two years ago, Colin had a stroke 

and it was pretty much touch and go for a while.

 

BUT

he's back and with a vengeance it seems!

"Just to let you all know Colin is about to try and prove how well 

he's recovered since his near-fatal stroke 2 years ago.

The very nice physio lady he goes to has organised for several teams of patients to run/walk in the Hairy Haggis Run in Edinburgh on 22nd May.

Each team has 4 members - in Team 4 our son James is running 8mls and then he and Colin will walk 4mls!

We'll be there watching and cheering them on.

Different Strokes is a small charity that gives lots of support and advice on dealing with life after a stroke, especially to young victims (from birth to 65)

and has given us a lot of help over the last months.

The website for donations is below - I do hope you'll feel that the effort is worthy.

Thank you for your support2

http://www.bmycharity.com/NikkiPennyDifferentStrokes  

GOOD LUCK COLIN

The Hen Party

 What a weekend...

I went on the maddest 

"Hen Day"

I have probably ever been on. 

Far from being an extrovert myself, 
I have only occasionally been known to sing and dance on tables in public, 
and that would only be after 

copious amounts of wine.

These are all  great gals I work with, 

who, when they party, they party with a vengeance.

 Thank goodness I can get away with just observing 

by simply having my camera slung around my neck
Phew

I did actually TRY to pull one of these 

uniform tutu's on over my clothes, 

but, either Sharon, 
bought me a size waist 18", 

(which I would like to think she had)

or I have gotten really,

 horribly, fat since working the nights.

Sadly, I suspect that is the case.

Either way, the only place it would fit was over

 my head like a bridal veil. 

We all went to Brighton, where the girls kicked up their heels
 in one of the karaoke bars at the end of the Pier.

It was great fun. 
As you can see 

they all had a whale of a time
(excuse the pun)
 and the people on
 Brighton Seafront wondered what had hit them.

Good Luck Zoe

( Now, I think I need to get in training for the wedding)








Have a great day
Hope you are having as much fun
whatever you are doing

He DID it

The Brighton Marathon.

What an amazing experience.

 Even to be a  spectator and see someone run it and to watch the joy on their face

 as they come through the finishing line,it is truly emotional. 

Well...the Nass did it.


After being diagnosed with MS just before Christmas.... which crushed him..momentarily
...he decided to run the Brighton Marathon


and after being thwarted in his training, due to a leg injury...
 after 20 years of not running.... 


he did only 9 runs before the injury and thought if he continued he 
wouldn't be able to actually run on the day.


On the big day...


After 4 miles his muscles seemed to give up on him and he thought
 he wouldn't be able to do it..
but true to form..
he persevered...but only just... and after a few miles
met up with Sammy, who was on the brink of also giving up.
They spurred each other on..and congratulated each other on each mile run
and they came through the finishing line together.

WELL DONE NASS!


He has raised over £1,000 for the Chestnut Tree Children's Hospice and £250 for the MS Society.
very many thanks to everyone who has kindly sponsored Nass.

• and for anyone still wanting to donate..here is the link
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http://www.justgiving.com/NASSIE4MS

HERE IS THE LINK TO MY PICTURES OF THE MARATHON

https://picasaweb.google.com/brennienass/BrightonMarathon

I tried to take as many pictures as I could of all the Chestnut Tree runners..
so..... if you were running for them, you might be interested to take a look
 and by all means download the ones you want.

NASS AND SAMMY AT THE FINISH




Nass is currently debating what his next challenge will be




Oh! God help me.........

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