Blog / furniture
before + after: bedside table
Hop on over to the Spoonflower blog today to see how I transformed my bedside table using paint and wall decal!
And in case you're interested, here are a few more before and afters from the archives: a piggy bank, a desk, and wooden boxes.
cross-stitch furniture
Back when we first moved into our new apartment, my husband and I took a trip to Ikea (many trips, actually) to pick out some new seating so that we'd have something other than the wood floor to sit on while we waited for the movers to arrive.
We wound up picking up an armchair and an ottomancovered in--wait for it--cross-stitch flowers! Though it's nearly impossible to photograph, the fabric is...
before + after: side chair
Back in March, I had the pleasure of participating in a weekend upholstery class at Spruce, a local upholstery studio (something I've wanted to do for ages!). For the class, I brought in a super comfy side chair that had been given to me by my parents-in-law.
Over the course of the two-day workshop, I stripped the chair, painted its wood white, rebuilt its cushioning, and reupholstered it using a combination of vintage floral fabric from Thread-Bare and new solid olive green (a color which is ridiculously difficult to capture on film!) upholstery fabric.
Image from Spruce.
The welt cord outlining the chair's edges is made from the floral fabric, which contains shades of cream, teal, brown, and sage green.
The project was pretty physically demanding (I had sore shoulders and hands for a few days after), but totally worth it. I especially love how the back of the chair frames the vintage floral fabric.
cross-stitch love: tinymodernist
(This is the second cross-stitch love post. Check out the first post here.)
After my involvement with the traveling exhibition Birth of Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury at the Blanton Museum of Art (I gave a gallery talk on midcentury pottery and ceramics), I've developed an appreciation for midcentury modern furniture; hence, my attraction to the amazing cross-stitch patterns of the tinymodernist that feature modern chairs, including these:
After my involvement with the traveling exhibition Birth of Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury at the Blanton Museum of Art (I gave a gallery talk on midcentury pottery and ceramics), I've developed an appreciation for midcentury modern furniture; hence, my attraction to the amazing cross-stitch patterns of the tinymodernist that feature modern chairs, including these:
I also love these phone patterns (my family had a beige rotary phone, similar to the red one below, up through my high school years):
before + after: desk
I'm going to start posting some of the projects I've been working on in the past few months. Tonight I'll start off with a desk I purchased a few months ago. I'd been looking for a desk for awhile, but hadn't had much luck finding anything that was the right size and price, or made from something besides reinforced cardboard. So I was pretty excited to find what I wanted during an afternoon visit to Goodwill. The desk is made from sturdy wood, and has lots of internal storage. The price? A very nice $25.
Before (note the knob missing from the bottom drawer on the left):
After (the black metal knobs are from Home Depot):
Before (note the chipping on the corner; a hunk was also missing from a top corner, but I filled it in with wood filler):
After (check out the desk's gorgeous detailing):
Overall I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, thought the paint is still a bit sticky, which makes worry I didn't give it enough time to dry in between coats (or it could be an effect of this darn Texas weather...).
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Before (note the knob missing from the bottom drawer on the left):
After (the black metal knobs are from Home Depot):
Before (note the chipping on the corner; a hunk was also missing from a top corner, but I filled it in with wood filler):
After (check out the desk's gorgeous detailing):
Overall I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, thought the paint is still a bit sticky, which makes worry I didn't give it enough time to dry in between coats (or it could be an effect of this darn Texas weather...).
