1.  cooking for fabulous foodie friends (and you all know who you are),

2.  painting furniture for an extra-lovely client whose family business, south front antiques (formerly the common market) is a landmark memphis antique/architectural salvage shop, whose home is filled with gorgeous old painted pieces, and whose mother was herself an accomplished painter of furniture.

but as the bumper sticker says, “you can’t scare me, i have twins”…so up the ladder i went, to make this shiny new armoire/bookshelf situation look layered and old, with red, crackled back panels.  here is a before, an after, and some details:

(the last one’s an updated photo, now that the gorgeous handles - treasures from south front antiques, of course - are on.)