Van Gogh

Last week when I did my thrift store remakes for the Anniversary party I didn't take pictures of the display. Sometimes I'm just not thinking of pictures, I'm thinking of getting the set-up just right and then I breath a sigh of relief when its done and forget pictures. It's a bad habit and one that irks my husband sometimes. I apologize if you were at all interested in what the display looked looked like but it did have a springy feel I can tell you that. Today I'm sharing one of the items.

I hoard chairs, like I really hoard chairs, which I've mentioned before. You could come shopping in my house for a chair it's that bad.   I think in part it's because I'm still trying to perfect my upholstery and I"ll deem them not quite worthy and hold onto them. At some point I will have to let some go. Either that or have a great game of musical chairs!

I like these little cast offs from what may have been part of a dining set at one time. They are great for adding just a bit of fun or whimsy to a boring table if its redone that way.You could use in a bedroom or just have sit in the corner till you need and extra chair.

I went for fun bright colours. Mostly because I wanted to use my new  van Gogh chalk paint or fossil paint as they like to call it. I adore the variety of their colours, I mean Starry Night or Sunflowers how great sounding are those!! 

The colour that I used is actually called Van Gogh and its such a beautiful shade of blue and everytime I look at it, it makes me cheery.

I used a vintage fabric from my stash and used new foam for a nice comfy seat. I gave it a sanding, distressed it and sealed it with beeswax polish.

I bought the the trial size paint pot of approximately 6 oz for $15.00 and I can tell you that its going to go a long way which is a wonderful thing  ( more bang for my buck) because I've got a couple of other things to paint this merry colour! :)

Want to revisit some of my past chairs?

blue chair

purple chair

Brown chair

Black chair

Hello New Year

Today's the day everything goes back to normal. People are off to work, most of the decorations have been put away but I am having a hard time taking down the tree as I do every year because I like it so much. Nary a needle has left the tree and this was taken this morning.

So what did I find as my highlights of 2014?

First, my thrift store project.

 It is more than possible to buy only secondhand fabric and clothing and survive.
Sewing my own wardrobe has definitely made me a better sewer. I find I'm reaching more and more for clothing I made to wear rather then store bought. I might have spent $50 on my clothes and fabric for the 2014 year. The best part is I'm getting exactly what I want (which I can never seem to find in a store) and it fits properly too. This project also taught me patience. Believe it or not I found everything on my wish list throughout the year by thrifting and waiting.  For the most part I will continue shopping this way for my clothing. My favourite piece I made....my blue polka dot blouse

My favourite would have been my Christmas dress but when sickness came a week before Christmas it got put away because I still had 3 of the 11 pj pants to sew. You'll see it soon though when it becomes my Valentines dress!

The trailer. 

It was one of my biggest time consumers of the year and totally worth it. This is only time I bought new fabric and even then it was wasn't much because I had a lot on hand. I had managed to find a huge chunk of heavy duty navy blue for the cushions from a thrift store which put a huge dint into having to buy new fabric.

The trailer is sitting in the yard all tucked away for winter and I can't help but wait for warmer weather to sleep in my little tin can. I realized that I don't have a great "Lets take a tour" pictures of it, only pictures here and there so come spring when we begin the work on the trailer (yes there is more fun stuff to happen in the way of a new sewer system) we shall continue that story.

A baby! Little Charlotte came into the world on April 1st.

She's a happy bubbly girl who makes your heart melt when she stretches out her arms to be picked up. She loves hanging out with any one as seen here with her Aunt Ashley.

A wedding

 The planning of the wedding took place at the same time as the work on the trailer so things began to feel a little hairy. We needed the trailer as a guest house for the wedding and the trailer liked to give us unexpected surprises. Thankfully the wedding did not. Oh things happened on the big day that I knew wasn't supposed to happen but M'lynn didn't know and thats all that mattered. 

My favourite furniture project was the chair.

It was in my opinion the first piece of upholstery that I did that I really liked other then this chair from way back when.

What's already found its way into the projects of 2015?

This little beauty. It needs to be rebuilt so I'm thinking the month of January should suffice...I hope. :)

A little Detour

As I was painting up a couple things for the sale my mother brought me this little bench. It's little seat that would have been used for a vanity and it's design just happens to be my favourite; a waterfall piece. I always associate it to the 20's and 30's because it seems that any period movie from that time uses this design as a prop. Every time I see this design I always fall madly in like all over again. It's not many peoples favourite in the painting world but it sure is mine.  So I took a little detour from projects and worked on it.
My aunt is moving and as someone who has lived in her house for years and years she has treasures lurking in dark places. Once upon a time my mother, her little brother and her parents also lived in this house, so there is a bit of a time capsule happening in her home.
The story about the bench and where it appeared from was a little foggy. My mother thinks my grandfather (my opa) had found it or possible acquired it as a cast off from someone.

The bench was found in the basement which had doubled as my opa's workshop years ago.  You could see it had been used as a painting bench because you can still see where something had been sprayed and left the mark of a wrench in it's fabric. It has also stood in water because you can see water marks on it's feet.
It caught my mom's eye the other day as they were moving things but as things were happening it got lost in the mix. She mentioned to my cousin that if she saw it could she save it for her. My cousin found it... in the dumpster and rescued it. My mother dropped it off and said "can you do anything with it?" Checking it over there was really nothing wrong with it that a little glue wouldn't fix.

Such lovely curve appeal.

It's a bit of a pet peeve of mine to take something that has lasted for years and may have a few quirks to find it going off to the landfill. So here's a secret, people like me will still buy these things from a thrift or restore. I've put back together a few bits of furniture over the years. This one comes to mind.

Here's what I did to bring  the little bench back to life. I started by giving it a good cleaning and sanding. The water marks in the legs weren't that bad and just a quick sanding evened things out. Then I glued and clamped all the loose joints and painted it with homemade chalk paint, distressed it and sealed it with my homemade beeswax polish. Next it's new seat. Roger cut me a new wood bottom since it's original was super musty. I used some vintage sheets to upholster the seat but reinforced it with some sturdier fabric underneath. Since actually using and sitting on it won't happen all that often I felt I could get away with using the sheet. (Doubled up the fabric is quite sturdy, I may do this again sometime) Its found it's home in front of my vanity.:)

Jumping the gun.

I was going to wait to show you buuuttt.... I'm just going to show you. Our new couch in the trailer!

I bought most of the fabric two years ago and the navy blue I found at a thrift store for around 10$ for 5 yds. Can't stop me from mixing and matching!

There's still trim and some other things to work out but for now I've got myself a comfy couch. :)

One done! So many more to go...

It's done! Well it still needs it's dust cover and that means a trip to the city but other then that it's done.

Let us look upon its original state. 

That was it almost a year and half ago. I brought it home, tore it apart, painted it and then let it sit in the back corner of my garage. ( you can kind of see why there is a no new furniture rule in place hehe)

It's been painted with my homemade chalk paint, sanded and buffed to a shine with my homemade beeswax polish.

Some pretty little braid ( gimp is it's proper name) has been added.

And for a surprise...

I can never seem to stick with just one fabric. Makes life a little more exciting don't you think. ;)

Link to elizabethandco
            Miss Mustard Seed

Procrastination at its Finest

I bought this is March.....2012.

And I quickly did this to it. Tore it apart and painted and distressed the wood.

Then it sat...... and sat...... and sat.

It moved in and out of  the house with the seasons. My not so patient husband was actually patient. Probably because I had it in the house more then out in the garage.

It wasn't like I didn't want to finish it, but I had grown into a love/hate relationship with it. No sooner had I stapled things in place, that I ripped it back off. It just didn't sit right.

Curves became my arch enemy. So I decided to ignore it till a light bulb went off.

Then I decided to have my family for Christmas this year, annnd I'm sure they'd like to sit somewhere, so I could put it off no longer. Out in the garage it went and wasn't coming in, till it was done. It came in last night at 9 o'clock.

Its not prefect, but I have to keep reminding myself that I'm not a professional.

The fabric I think was picked out in 2011 by Roger. It was a deal at buy one, get two free.

See its smiling at me!

So what took me over a year to "think" about took me less then a day to do.

My hand hurts, I smashed my knee and I stapled my finger not once but twice in the making of this project, but in the end I'm happy, sore... but happy! :)

The Occasional Chair

For one whole week we set off  North to enjoy some r&r. I find it hard to resist the chance to have a real fire and a good cup of hot chocolate.

Before I left I finished this chair.

Sad little thing isn't it.

M'lynn thought it might look nice in blue and I was itching to use my milk paint again.

So we picked the colour " Laurentien" by Homestead House.

At first it didn't look very blue, it looked more gray, but we waited it out and this was the result.

It's now a cute chair, that can sit in the corner to be used when needed.

I've also been itching to use this fabric. It has all new padding, which gave it a little more umpf then it had before.

  

I like the way the rustic chair, meets up with the classy damask, making it a great chair for any occasion. ;)

Practice piece in Black and White

I had a bit of a disappointment a couple of weeks ago. I had gone to my local upholsters and asked if I could volunteer my time in return to teach me a few things. Both said no. I'm not upset with them in anyway, just was hoping to learn a little faster then I am. (sigh)

A while back I bought this fainting couch at my local thrift store. This was layer one.

This was layer two

And number three

Black and white seems to be my theme this week, so here it is.

I used my mixed up design and reupholstered it and painted the legs black.

So the question is am I happy with it?.... The answer is, I'm ok with it. Since I'm learning how to do this on my own, from books and videos, it is what it is. And thats ok with me. Each little practice piece along the way, I'm hoping for better results, until one day I will be decent upholster and feel confident enough to sell something I do.
                                       Until then, I just lounge around on this one.:)

Quick change, Fresh look.

It seems it happens to all of us from time to time. We caught up in the outside world, that our own little world falls into a pit of despair.
My poor dining room chairs would fall into this category. When we moved here it was time to recover the chairs, and being the thrifty person that I aspire to be, used the drapes that had been left by the previous owner and recovered the chairs.
Fast foward to present day and the fabric is falling apart, not to mention it looks rather disgustingly gross.


The one on the right is the before. It doesn't look that bad, but I picked one of the better chairs for the picture.

This fabric was actually a bargain at $20.00 a meter. The bargain comes into play when you get 2 extra meters for free! This gives me more then enough because each chair takes 1/4 of a meter to cover it.

Recovering this type of dining room chair is something anyone can do. Its best to take off previous fabric so you will need is a pair if pliers and something to remove old staples, a flat screwdriver will work, and a staple gun.

Heres a shot of what it looks like underneath after the new fabric has been added.

And a closer look.

To do this, make sure that you start stapling in the centers all the way around, then working your way from the center to the corners pull and staple. Check your work along the way by flipping it over making sure your getting the desired effect. When you get the corners is where you will usually have excess fabric. Fold fabric into corners, staple, fold, staple, until you have a smooth corner looking from the top.

I only have a few more to go and then its one more thing off my to-do list, before..ahem..Christmas. :)

A Good thing.

A long, long time ago and what seems to be a galaxy far, far away, I took a chair I have to an upholster. I was trying to do it myself but I got frustrated and had a bit of a fit. I made a call and delivered said chair this past October to an upholster.

This is it. My sad little looking chair. It has moved from home to home and room to room. Everyone asking me "Can you please move that chair somewhere else".

For 6 months it was gone. I was promised it would be done in a couple of weeks, but as weeks went into months a funny thing happened. I calmly got mad and decided I'd practice upholstery on a few pieces. What I didn't think would happen is that I would like doing it as much as I do.

There is some kind of weird relaxation that takes over as I staple away on a piece. 

I've got a lot to learn yet, but had the chair not been gone so long, I think I would have saved my pennies and had someone else upholster them for me.  Who knows maybe one day I'll feel brave enough to take in someone else's chair or sofa.

This is it now. I think its beautiful and they did a great job, but I'm thankful it took so long because it gave me the push out of the nest I needed.:) 

I like so many around me have been struck with some nasty virus which has literally drained the life force from my body and left me trying to take many naps to get rid of it. Yesterday I popped in Lady and the Tramp and promptly fell asleep for an hour. Today which is a  beautiful,warm day will be lost for me since I'll be looking for the couch soon, with a pillow to curl up with, but before I do that, I'll show you how far I am with the chair. I was hoping to work on it today but I'm finding small projects to handle which require sitting, instead.lol 

     And now Photoshop is not working properly and I'm too tired to scream, but here they are anyway.

All new webbing. The old stuff fell apart when you touched it.

All my little springs sewn in place and ready to be tied.

Tied with curve appeal. This will give the chair its shape.

 With the burlap now over top and stapled into position you can see that the chair is now taking shape.As far as I can tell and from what books I've read,and videos I've watched, I'm pretty close to doing it properly. But the end result will be the tell tale sign.

For now, the couch is calling.:)

The Anatomy of my Chair

                                                        This is practice chair number 2.

We acquired this chair when Rogers mom passed away 14 years ago. The plan was to one day get it reupholstered. 

The fabric is worn and the cushion a little saggy, but it's a solid little chair. Not a wiggly little bit anywhere. It also seemed like the right project to continue practicing on now, for me.

I began by taking the back off, only to discover that the springs were ready to pop out the back.

I wouldn't have thought that the webbing holding it all in, was in such bad shape. 

I started snapping pictures with my phone to keep a record of how everything was and how I'd like to put it back together. I've got pictures from different angles, different details, just a wide variety of this and that.

As I took things apart, I discovered that it had been reupholstered I believe twice before. But I'm pretty sure that the burlap covering the arms, back and bottom are original to the chair. 

When I removed the burlap from the arms I found this

What looks like straw, but I'm sure it has some other name. You can also see where there was another fabric under the pink damask. I didn't think I'd have to take it back this far (right down to its bones) but I'm excited to see if I can put it back together again. Its going to require getting some new tools that I don't have, so I'm not sure that I can count it as an expense for the dumping grounds room or not. This chair will be for that room. I do have the fabric to cover it but not the little extras to rebuild it, like new foam, webbing and cording for the springs. There are a few other things that will come in handy, that I need. I will keep a tally for the chair though and tell you in the end what its total cost is.

Wish me luck. I believe I'm going to need it. :)