Furniture Makeovers Archives | Page 43 of 111

Furniture Makeovers

All Things Home

checked chair

I have been in an upholstery mood lately and I’ve learned I need to take advantage of that sort of mood and get some upholstery done. Kriste worked on stripping a couple of chairs we had hanging in the stash and I started upholstering this beauty. One of my regular shoppers at Lucketts sent me pictures of it, asking if I would be interested. Well, of course! So, we negotiated a trade. Jeff’s face was a riot when he saw someone bringing a piece of furniture to our booth instead of away from it. Especially a chair with grass hanging out of it. But he didn’t see what I saw. I saw the gorgeous patina on the wood frame and the old straw and horse hair stuffing. I knew I could bring this old girl back to life and she would be worth it. I’ve also been really into checks lately. I’ve added

March 16, 2015 76 Comments

All Things Home

french twins reveal

This reveal is a little anticlimactic, since you’ve already seen what one finished chair looks like and they are twins, so the other one looks pretty much the same. As with all identical twins, though, there are some subtle differences, so I thought it was worth giving them both a proper introduction. I’m going to totally brag on my student Kriste and say that she did 99% of the upholstery work on one of these. Can you tell which one? She did an amazing job and you can’t tell which one was done by the experienced upholsterer and which one was done by the rookie. She did the one of the left, if you’re curious. We have a lot of chairs in the hopper to work on for Lucketts, so I’m glad to have her on my team! Here is how the chairs started. They weren’t bad at all,

March 11, 2015 29 Comments

All Things Home

reupholstering a French chair | part 6 | applying the trim

We are finally at our final installment of this video tutorial series on reupholstering a French style chair. It’s time to frame out those upholstered panels and cover the staples with some gimp trim. In case you missed the first five parts, or need to reference them, here are the links… Part 1 – stripping the chair Part 2 – painting the frames Part 3 – distressing & waxing the frames Part 4 – selecting & cutting the fabric Part 5 – reupholstering the chair I often get asked what the “trick” is to applying trim. Honestly, there is no trick. It’s just hot-glued on! Really. At first I thought I might be taking a short cut, but I’ve taken apart dozens and dozens of chairs and settees and almost all of them have been glued. One or two of them were just tacked into place, but I’ve seen enough

March 1, 2015 22 Comments

All Things Home

reupholstering a French chair | part 5 | upholstering the chair

We are finally here…get your staple guns out and let’s start upholstering!! I know it’s hard to believe that it takes four parts to get to the point when you can actually upholster, but that’s often how DIY projects are – you have to do several steps to get to the fun part (or at least the part when it starts looking like an improvement and not an epic fail.) This episode is the longest, because I wanted to show each step in detail, especially the tricky places. I know it also helps visual learners to actually see what I’m doing as opposed to just hearing me describe it. I also wanted to do a bit of hand-holding for people who are brand new to upholstery. I talk about the staple gun I use in the video, but I thought I would link to it here as well. It’s a

February 23, 2015 30 Comments

All Things Home

upholstering a french chair | painting & finishing the chair frame

Here we are at parts two and three of our makeover of these French chairs I found on Craig’s List… We stripped off the upholstery in part one, which you can find HERE in case you missed it. Once the upholstery is stripped, that is the time to deal with the frame if you want to change it at all. I love leaving wood frames alone when they are to my taste, but this one had a shiny finish, black speckles that speak to the 1970’s-80’s and a hand painted gold detail that wasn’t really my thing. Stripping the finish would’ve been much more than I wanted to take on, so I decided to paint. Kriste and I painted the frames in MMSMP in Mora… (In case it’s driving you nuts, I did paint the inside of the back left leg of my chair once the camera stopped rolling.) Since the

February 19, 2015 12 Comments

Before and Afters

paint brush on a stick

I was all set to meet Kriste at the studio this morning, but as I was getting up and about for the day, I realized I really wanted to paint my walls and trim and get the tedious painting project that’s been hanging over my head for years, finished. When the mood strikes to do something like that, you do it. So I did. I shared last week about some of the painting on my to-do list… Yesterday, I painted the walls (Gray Owl) and the trim (bright white out of the can) in the hallway through the arch. It just looks fresher and brighter than it did with the off-white trim and creamy-beige walls. Here the hallway is from the bathroom view before it was painted… …and after. The stairway was the same color and really dingy and scuffed. You can see I have touched it up over the

February 4, 2015 38 Comments

Before and Afters

Furniture Makeovers Galore…

If you like furniture makeovers, you’re going to have an overflowing cup after perusing this post. This weekend, the Mustard Seed Studio hosted our first BYOF (bring your own furniture) workshop. This is less instruction than the milk paint 101 workshop and is more about finishing a piece and learning along the way. We had seven ladies attend, plus Kriste and my mom. The furniture (and their owners) started showing up about 15 minutes before the start of the workshop. Of course, I loved this French-back cane chair, a find from Craig’s List, instantly. I got a little anxious, though, when Nancy, the owner, said she was going to paint the upholstery as well. The frame painted up really well, as I expected. Nancy added the Bonding Agent to the paint, so it would adhere to the slick yellow-ish finish. I nervously checked in on her as she was painting the

February 2, 2015 32 Comments

All Things Home

styling the jelly cupboard

I’ve been under the weather for the past few days. I’m getting better, but hanging out in bed doesn’t make for very fun blog posts. I checked out my draft folder to look for posts I started, but never finished or posted, usually because something more exciting comes along to write about. As I was digging through the drafts folder, I found this one… I have written about styling before and I thought I would share the process I went through styling this primitive jelly cupboard I sold at the Chapel Market last October. I started out with a large market basket sitting on top. I’ve learned when it comes to styling that a lot of little things can get lost in a picture. It’s better to use pieces that make a bigger statement. I think this can also translate to styling a piece for your home. Imagine this jelly cupboard with

January 29, 2015 24 Comments

I’m Marian, a painter, writer, and lover of all things creative. From art and antiques to home projects and everyday life, I share my journey in hopes of inspiring you to embrace your own creativity and make beauty in the spaces you live.

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