The Journey of a Chair

 

I found this antique chair on the curb in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As it is an antique, I could not resist it and brought it back home to Turkey!

To make it fit in a suitcase I had to completely dismantle it, but I was successful. I then had to built it back up.

I then first sanded the straight parts with my sander and then spent hours hand sanding the details.

I stain varnished it to make it look like it was but without the damage.

The biggest impact was replacing the destroyed cane with upholstered fabric.

And not just fabric, it is actually a vintage embroidery and the piece was just big enough to cover all three parts of the chair.

It has a very Art Deco/ Art Nouveau vibe. The old embroidery fits perfectly and brought color to the piece yet still respecting the antique piece it is.

It is hard to believe that this beauty could have ended up in the landfill, makes you wonders what treasures got lost in the trash.

The chair is available at StarHomeStudio

Cinderella Transformation

We purchased these 1950's chairs a while back. I found them so ugly that I resisted especially as we already have a whole bunch of chairs that are awaiting my tender loving care. But mum loved their potential so they came home with us.

The yucky brown paint and horrible fabric to match were I guess once upon a time 'fashionable'.

After peeling off old the fabric and the filling, and then stripping off the paint (with help of a non-toxic paint remover) they already looked a million times better.

They also had crooked front legs which I had to remove and reattach to straighten them, plus the entire skeleton needed some serious glue and nail reenforcements.

After that, they waited in a pile for a few months...

Until we finally decided what to do with them and I had finished a few older projects.

I painted the details which brought out the beautiful woodwork. Unlike pieces from the 70's-80's these are actually hand carved! How silly to cover up so much work with that ugly dark brown stuff.



I kept the old webbing but also added new webbing.

It got fresh new foam instead of dusty batting.

And then I cut this amazing handwoven damask linen with hand embroidery. I had painted the flowers according to this embroidery.

Oh my gosh, what a difference. Of all the transformations we've done this one seems to be the most extreme, from extremely ugly to extremely gorgeous, like the famous Cinderella scene, from a dirty girl to a shiny princess.

After painting the details I varnished the entire piece.

It seems that the chairs were not done by the same person, lots of small details are a bit different, which I love.

Besides the woodwork the embroidery is also not the same, making them matching but each also unique.

We are totally in love with them.

They are available in our StarHomeStudio shop among many other unique furniture pieces and home decor.

A Few Make overs

It is Spring, or here almost Summer, we don't really have Spring here. Which means all doggies are having a make over :) I've already done 8 of the 10 and Lulu is so funny, before and after, that I thought to show you :)

Lulu has naturally a mohawk, which I find hilarious. She is a sausage/ terrier mix and both sides you can see in the most fun way.

Her under hair is brown, so once trimmed she has a totally different color.

But where the mohawk was, is now black, creating a wide stripe. We find her adorable each way:)

The other make over are these tables.

They had a very tough varnish on them which took ages to remove and they were crooked and wonky.

After they were stabilized I painted them in white with turquoise.

To match marbled paper I had made during my course this Winter.

They are a set of nesting tables and I painted them to match in a fun way.

I love how they turned out, very beach cottage :) They are available at StarHomeStudio.

And in case you wondered what I did with the remaining of the spoon, I turned it into a very cool keychain.

Trashure

A friend's neighbor was throwing this sad stool a way. My friend rescued it, knowing I would be able to use it. Yes, I get trash gifts :D

Although it was falling apart it was actually well made and stable. It was missing two side sticks but I knew what to do with that problem right away.

First I dismantled it completely, it had good long screws that I threw in the tumbler for them to clean up. The parts of the top and those used to kind of repair it in the past I got rid of. I then used one of the long sticks to replace the missing short one and all the long sticks I replaced with pretty sticks that we bought in a thriftshop back in 2017 during our trip to California.

I filled up the screws and holes and already it looked much better! I brushed the wood clean but did not sand it smooth as I wanted to keep its texture.

I choose 5 colors of paint to match what I wanted to use on the top. I painted the wood with a rough dry brush without trying to cover the entire wood (except for the first layer of dark brown) and then sometimes used a metal brush to rub it off for an aged look.

The paintwork gets varnished as I use water-based paint. The feet got felt to protect both the paintwork and the floor it will live on :) I built the top of salvaged wood.

As this stool already was pretty high I needed to have a frame going down. The ugly bottom got covered with fabric.

The top got a 5 cm foam and got covered again with the red lining fabric.

And the top I covered with vintage kilim. The side kilim has holes due to the way it is woven, hence why the foam needed to be covered with fabric first.

This one might have the most extreme makeover yet till date, I'm so happy that it turned in to something pretty instead of ending up in a landfill.

It is super strong and stable, and absolutely gorgeous to look at.

I find it so satisfying to give these sad pieces of furniture another chance, even a better one than that they had when they were new :)

Available at StarHomeStudio among many other one-of-a-kind furniture pieces and home decor.