Sunday 18 May 2014

B/A Vintage

Welcome to B/A vintage, my new blog that I'm struggling with, with help from my sister- in-law. On Tuesday we are heading to Ireland/ Scotland/England. We are going to a wedding and visiting Annie Sloan stockists along the way. I think I have it. Thanks Elida.

I have been doing a tea blog for years, but it's time to move on to my store. So we will start at the beginning. In 1980 we bought our B/A garage. It was being used as a garbage dump, the owner at the time had a garbage truck and would dump the garbage in the building and go get another load. Wouldn't be allowed today, and we lived next door. Took a lot of elbow grease and cleaning and painting to get it back in shape- no Annie Sloan then.

Our business is auctions and we have been doing them for 43 years, first started out in a family mill and then moving into the garage.

It is quite the building, the only one left in Canada, has been in movies and commercials. We are really proud of it and earlier this year Frank was given the historical award for the building from the Lieutenant Governor David Onley, quite an honour. The front part has been a craft store, canteen always, grocery store (village store had burnt down), post office, and present day a vintage store, selling refurbished furniture, giftware, imported items from Ireland, Miss Mustard Seeds Milk Paint and Annie Sloan chalk paint.
I started painting with the chalk paint decorative paint by Annie Sloan, in the summer of 2012 and was very interested in selling it. But it was just a dream in my mind, something I never thought I would be able to do. I first found out about it through blogs and found the paint in Alberta, but sadly when I went to do the order the stockist had been killed in a car accident. How sad that was. Then I found Elizabeth in Bath, a long drive, but we headed out and got the old white, sample jar of Antoinette and Versailles.
First piece I painted, this piece was so ugly, rough, frank was always telling me to get rid of it. It is so charming, just love it.
 

The second piece. Exactly like I read, no priming, no sanding, unbelievable.

I will be blogging on the trip about the shoppes along the way