Thursday 7 July 2016

Time to Celebrate


Today is my Birthday, and I picked myself a pretty black and white virtual cake from WildOrchidBaking to match our new furniture piece :)
The last finishing touches were done yesterday evening, even though it is a small piece it took many many days, but the results make me giggle.


But I am jumping to the results, lets start at the beginning...


It all started with these two abandoned ugly ducks. Clearly water damaged, and in general sad state.
Also the structure was wonky. We decided to make of the pretty front feet an ottoman, the back feet have no carvings. So two chairs would become one ottoman.


Pulling them apart turned out to be a challenge. The stuff that came out of the chairs was pretty disgusting, fabric pieces, straw, cotton etc and all in a far from fresh state.


We were left with this. The original idea was to make it square, by using two piece of the original wood connected together (a bit hard to explain). But then we would cut a bit of the carved wood, the parts that are sticking above would be all sawed off. Eventually we thought to just keep the wood as it is, and making the seat rectangular and turning the weird sticking out pieces into arm rests.


I think you are now starting to see where we are going at, still butt-ugly but a cool shape, right :)?
We used the original corners to make it stable, this little chair has so much extra stuff for stability, you could dance on it.


The pieces of wood used for the arm rests are upcycled from an old shelf,


After the added webbing it is starting to look like something.


And after many hours of scraping and sanding the ugly dark varnish you can finally appreciate the carvings, which are much prettier and more dimensional than we first thought.


Then I painted it, which I had shown last week. The painting and varnishing took me a full 3 days.


The color choice of the paint work was because of this beautiful vintage embroidery. It is completely embroidered and has gorgeous colors and texture.


Doesn't make these colors you super cheerful?


For the additional unexpected finishing touch a black and white double piping, which is really frustrating to sew and staple but gives a beautiful finishing.


And here it is (she said proudly), it is fun, colorful, cheerful and 90% made of upcycled/ recycled/ vintage materials, yaaay!


Stripes, flowers, lots of colors what is not to love about this?


I think this would be great as a vanity chair in the bedroom, or in the hallway or in the living room. Could even be used as piano chair, but most of all this is a statement piece and should be seen :)


Can't wait to paint the ugliness out of another chair :)


The chair is available at StarHomeStudio among others one of a kind furniture pieces.

12 comments:

  1. Absolutely stunning!
    Happy Birthday!!!

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  2. Just wow! What a stunning transformation chica! I think my imagination is too vivid, I might have run away from the chair when the stuffing was pulled out. You did a truly awesome job. I feel inspired but I have no time for it, this chair, some pieces from Nathalie's shop and a skirt from your other shop would make a real Alice in Wonderland magazine page!

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  3. What an awesome job you did! It's the victory of inspiration!

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  4. Happy Birthday dear Estella! Congrats, another stunning piece!!

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  5. Happy birthday, lady! have a blast!! Your chair is the top of the pop

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  6. I have said it already but this would be perfect in my living room...perfect color scheme...

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  7. Wow, this is just amazing. You are becoming real "furniture engineers" I would not know what to do with the broken pieces you started with.
    Wishing you happy birtday and all the best.

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  8. Another cool transformation!I love the colors you've chosen for this one!And it's so colorful, a pleasure to look at it each and every day!

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  9. I always love your furniture soooo much! And happy birthday (again)! hope you had a fantastic day ^^

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