Sofa and Loveseat - After

So, this ended up being a HUGE endeavor for me. The love seat alone is about 72" long. The sofa is 94" long! Both pieces are 42" deep. Considering I'd never done any sort of upholstering project before, I certainly had my work cut out for me. In fact, in hind sight I don't know what I was thinking: I'd always joked that I couldn't sew a pillow case to save my life. Not only did this project create a gigantic learning curve for me, it certainly boosted my confidence with textile manipulations in general (which I'll be posting more samples of as I have time to photograph them...).

Anyway. Being on an extremely tight budget and realizing I was going to have to purchase, from my point of view, enough fabric to wrap my up my house, I went REALLY cheap. I decided I'd make the slip covers in simple canvas. More specifically, I paid $7 each for 3 9' x 12' canvas painter's throws from the local hardware shop (they were on sale). I cut them down to workable widths and, voila, I had my foundation fabric. I used a handy little book I'd purchased at the local craft shop for a quick How-To on slip covers, and the rest was a lot of pain-staking measuring, trimming, pinning and sewing.... miles and miles of sewing.

I realized the pillows would be too bland if I made all of them out of canvas. So, I pulled out the old hand-made curtains and upholstering projects my mother-in-law had given me (there she is again!). The fabrics are from the 70's and very early 80's, so they had the colors and prints that I have come to really adore. Mix that with a few bargains I found at the local fabric shop, and you have the final product. It looks a little bohemian... but I guess that's why I like it. :)

Sofa and Loveseat - Before

It's been years ago now, but after we relocated our family across country, we found ourselves starting over from scratch (we'd sold just about everything to make the move). Dear friends of ours, having just purchased a new living room set, gave us their old sofa and love seat to help get us started.

As you've seen from my other posts, I tend to lean toward lighter and brighter color palettes. So, the existing fabric on the furniture didn't really work with what I was envisioning for our home. I captured some images of the sofas in their 'before' state from a video I'd taken as we were originally unpacking. You can see the tweed quality and the darker colors that compose the fabric's pattern.

4-handle Nightstand - After

The finish choice was pretty simple: this piece was going into my daughter's room, I only used a tenth of the off-white quart I'd purchased to redo her rocker and it would be over my dead body that I'd paint this thing pink. The nightstand was going to be Alpaca White, just like the rocking chair.

The original handles were cheap little white ceramic knobs with brass pins in the center. Two of them were broken and, even if they hadn't been, the white would look terrible up against the off-white.

I can't tell you how many online sites and stores I went to trying to find a small-scale knob that would look decent on this piece AND look cute in my daughter's room. I finally headed to a local hardware place, Menard's, and low and behold, there they were! All on sale (I think I paid about $2 for all of them) and a finish that matched the metal fixtures in her room.

As with the little telephone table I'd done, I was initially concerned about the scale of the handles. But the filigree adds a lightness to their presence that balances it all out.

4-handle Nightstand - Before

Here was an ugly little thing I picked up at an estate sale. It had been painted by someone who I think had been aiming for some sort of distressed finish: pale turquoise brushed over a white undercoat... with very obvious brush strokes all over. In my opinion - horrible. BUT, I'm sure the little piece was adored and looked at with much pride by the person who took the time to do it.

Either way, it didn't work for me.

This was one piece I was so eager to finish, I'd stripped it before realizing I hadn't taken any 'before' pics. So, here you have it stripped bare and ready for priming. I'd hoped I could take it down to the wood, but I soon discovered I was going to have a very messy wood left when all was said and done. So, again, paint ended up being the approach I chose to take.

Child's Table & Chairs - After

And here's the finished product. The color IS a bit bright and, believe it or not, pink is probably my LEAST favorite color in existence. I used a fabric swatch from the little rocker I'd just completed to be my inspiration for color choice. As I thought about my plan of attack, pink became the final color choice.

The flower design wasn't an initial part of the plan. As I prepped the pieces for painting, though, the thought of looking at a HUGE field of bright pink every day unsettled my nerves a bit. I finally realized creating a pattern from the already adorable rocker seat fabric would be a wonderful way to tie the two pieces together, since the frames would be in completely different colors. I ended up doing the initial graphic design for the flower with a compass, protractor and graph paper. That allowed me to transfer the image and enlarge it to a big sheet of trace, which I then used to transfer with graphite to the table top. I painted the petals in by hand with acrylic paint and then top coated everything to prevent chipping.

I cannot tell you how happy I was when all was said and done. More importantly, my daughter adores this table. And, whenever the cousins come over, it's everyone's favorite place to sit down and dine.

Child's Table & Chairs - Before

A small child's table with two chairs was given to us for our daughter's birthday. Found at a local garage sale, the grand total for the set was $5. The finish was the classic yellowed medium brown that seemed to be so popular in the 70's. Since the table top ended up being MDF, I had to approach the set with a painted finish (which bummed me out because I'd initially hoped to do a light natural finish).

Anyway, here's what I started with:

A Childhood Rocker - After

My goal was to create a piece for our little girl that would match the furniture already in her room. Her off-white frame was the source I used to color match a paint that would be the final coating for the chair. At the time, we were VERY low tech. So, all the sanding, painting and refinishing was done by hand... NOT electric tools. The final finish is one coat of primer, three coats of color and three coats of polycrylic satin finish top coat. This chair has since been hit, banged, dragged - you name it - and the finish is still going strong.

The fabric took me a LONG time to find. As you have already seen, I love being playful and I'm not afraid of color. When I came across this material at Hancock Fabrics, I was smitten. Our little one is still using the chair, a favorite spot to settle in and watch a movie. Those of you with a watchful eye will have actually seen it "debut" in the Refurbished Lamp pictures from a previous post.

A Childhood Rocker - Before

Here's a piece, again, given to me by my mother-in-law (I'm going to have to start paying her royalties!....): the rocking chair my husband used as a toddler. I have no idea who the maker was or where it was built. The seat was made of a fiberboard that had split in half, stuffed with crumbling foam and topped off with a 'lovely' 1970's brown, rust and goldenrod pattern that, you'll conspicuously notice is missing from the pictures. I didn't think there was much sense in documenting the atrocity. ;)

Anyway, I knew I wasn't decimating some treasured piece of furniture history and had no problem stripping off the yellowy-brown finish and constructing a new seat base from some extra plywood my dad-in-law had laying around.

Refurbished Lamp - After

It's phenomenal what elbow grease, steel wool and patience can accomplish! I'd always had it in my mind to re-finish the base with a colored lacquer, and Apple Green is a cheerful color that I've long enjoyed, so there you have it. The lampshade was a completely different issue. The interior mounting system proved to be incompatible with any and all replacement lamp shades I could find at local decor shops. As time began to pass, I finally decided it was time for me to try my hand at lampshade making.

I'd read a great article from an old Martha Stewart magazine my mother-in-law still had laying around. It went into detail as to cut, mount and decorate your own shade. I combined that acquired knowledge with some other things I'd learned online or by living vicariously through our local PBS station. What resulted was a shade made of off-white linen with a clumsy attempt on my part at crewel work and pretty frosted bead trim. I believe the playfulness of the resultant shade only enhances the unexpected color of the lacquered base. By far, one of my most favorite pieces in my living room!

Refurbished Lamp - Before

Here's a real doozy. My mother-in-law had a throwback lamp from the early 80's that'd been stuffed in the corner of a garage for quite awhile. The hubby and I, being desperate for lighting at the time, took the donation gratefully (it still worked, after all, and the price was right). But, there was no denying it was in bad shape and just plain ugly.

The original lamp shade was a tall funnel-style shape that I remember so vividly from the late 70's/early 80's (there. I've dated myself). Covered in a tweed fabric, you can see the dark water stains that had formed. The base, a floor lamp foot with a coffee table-like appendage half way up, is a brass finish that was seriously corroded.

I knew I had my work seriously cut out for me.

Restored Telephone Table - After

The level of scratches and damage pretty much required stripping and refinishing this piece. I cringed the whole time I did it, wondering what kind of intrinsic value I might be stripping away, but in the end the aesthetic of this piece was more important to me.

I decided to experiment with Minwax's new line of stain/polycrylic combo finish that allows you to simultaneously lay stain and finish on a piece. I mean, the table cost me $2, so what did I really have to lose? For this project I chose a Mahogany color stain that would dry to a satin finish. This product is meant for quick projects where tone control of color isn't too important to the craftsman. If you're wanting to achieve a particular depth of color or grain-accentuation then approach your staining project the old-school way.

Anywho, for this project I'm feeling pretty good about the final product. The deeper tone really modernized the piece. The new brushed pewter handle was an exciting find. At first I was concerned it might be a bit to big for the scale of the table, but I think it turned out all-right. Again, IMHO, not too shabby for $2. :)

Restored Telephone Table - Before

I found this little beauty at a yard sale. It's broken leg was laying on top, a screw still protruding from a long-past attempt at repair. I walked away paying just $2. I have little skill at identifying wood types, so your guess is as good as mine. I do know this little table is surprisingly lightweight and the grain quality is lovely. The original finish was a medium brown and nicked up quite a bit. You can see the pretty but dated pull handle on the front.