Trash to Treasure

Hello Friends,

The first year that Cathy and I painted we spent an enormous amount of money. First of all we both had to get supplies. We were very willing to share paints but we absolutely had to have our own brushes and other supplies. In addition, we both took many classes, purchased a boat load of books and pattern packets and generally spent a small fortune on painting supplies. We never regretted it for an instant as painting has changed our life but we knew that we needed to find ways to save money or we wouldn't survive in this lifestyle. The problem was that we didn't have the skill or the confidence to take patterns and lessons and adapt them to alternate surfaces so we always had to get the recommended surface. Well, after we painted for a while we learned that we could take a pattern and make it our own. We could enlarge it or reduce it and we could also eliminate some of the elements in the design to make it fit a particular surface. That opened up a world of possibilities for us and we want to share them with you.

Some of our greatest times have been spent combing through thrift shops and yard sales to find surfaces that make excellent painting surfaces. The amazing thing is that the surface can look cheap in its original state but if you slap a coat of paint on it and give it a wonderful decorative painting treatment you can have a piece of art that will be passed down for generations.

My first case in point is the wall in our kitchen. In my second year in decorative painting I got obsessed with Zhostova painting but had no idea how to learn. I bought books off of the Internet and bought every inexpensive tray that I could find. All of the trays on this wall are reclaimed surfaces and the most I paid for any one of these trays was $4.99. Thats right! $4.99. Some of these trays had embossed designs on them but you can't really tell after they are painted and they are gorgeous. They have scalloped edges and all kinds of decoration. You just have to imagine what they could be.....

From this photo it is a little hard to tell the detail on these pieces but they are splendid trays and I probably paid a total of $20 for all of those trays put together. That is a bargain!

On one particularly fruitful trip to the thrift store I found two other trays. One is a very simple silver tray with an interesting edge. I was teaching stroke roses and used it for my class piece. I am totally serious in saying that this surfaces was 99 cents and now it is this gorgeous tray.

On that same trip I found another huge tray for the very expensive price of $3.99. If I were to find this tray in a decorative painting catalogue it would easily cost over $25. I painted this tray and now it is a permanent part of our kitchen.

The list of wonderful surfaces continues. This gorgeous table cost me $4.99 and now look at it. At our last show I had someone offer me $350 for it. I won't part with it because I like it so much.

We paid under $2.00 for this magazine stand at a yard sale and it provided us for a great surface when we were demonstrating Rosemaling at one of our shows. This piece now graces our living room.

This old suitcase and this end table were both given to us. Neither of them were too aesthetically pleasing when we received them but now we love them both. The trick is to see through what it currently is and to see what it could become.

Metal pieces can also be reclaimed surfaces and don't necessarily have to match. In the first picture you will see a metal charger plate that we purchased at Walmart for under $5. We bought every one of these plates that we could find. The plates are large and have this interesting roping around it. They are awesome painting surfaces. In the second picture you can see several unmatched pieces for a silver setting. We painted them to look the same and no one would know that we paid pennies for these pieces.

In closing this rather lengthy post I would like to share a story with you. Now I don't like to gloat when I tell this story but for Cathy...."I told you so". When we first got married I would comb through the sales circulars to find antiques that I could refinish. I loved to spend my time reclaiming old furniture. One time I saw in our local paper an ad for a trunk. I bought it and Cathy was not real happy. The trunk only cost $20 but at that time we didn't have two nickles to rub together. She thought the trunk was nasty and to be truthful, it was. I slapped a coat of paint on that thing and we have used it ever since but she never liked it. When she would go on a rant about it she would laughing call it "Pauley's Folly".....Well, I went through my Bauernmalerei phase and thought that I would paint this trunk and further distress it. The results were really wonderful and this trunk is one of the show pieces of our family room. Besides that, you could drive a truck on top of it and it wouldn't matter. So....this trunk is a perfect example of trash to treasure.


As you can see, I have futher distressed the trunk. Instead of trying to hide the fact that it was old and beaten up, I highlighted it. I am very fond of this piece of painted furniture. I painted it early in my painting career and some of the strokes aren't perfect but Cathy and I love this piece.

I hope that this exploration of trash to treasure surfaces has inspired you to hunt for some surfaces of your own. You don't have to spend a lot of money to create beauty, you just have to use your imagination.

Creatively,

Paul and Cathy