Newly Listed: Tree of Life Embroidered Ottoman

Olive wallpaper, Removable wall mural, Crow, Peel and stick, Raven decor, Leaves, Botanical, Peel and stick by marWALLous

Tree of Life Embroidered Ottoman, Hand carved wooden Furniture, Queen Anne Legs, Black, Green, Pink Pouf Bohemian Wooden Furniture by StarHomeStudio

Vintage Ornate Green Mirror late 1930's Wooden Frame Floral Frame Vintage reversed Painted Mirror by StarHomeStudio

Finished Projects

We had another sad vintage frame that I gave some new life and a new look.

I filled up the missing Gusso with lots of various flowers. After that many layers of paint and a mirror, and it is ready to use.

No before photo of this one, it was just a sad wobbly little piece without a top. After sanding, painting and varnishing, I upholstered it with a vintage embroidery with matching side fabric and fun striped piping.

The embroidery was done on velvet, making it all soft. I love its vibrant colors.

I also completely restored this old cabinet, which used to be used to store food in.

,I replaced the rusty wires with new chicken wire, sanded the shelves that gotten dark from many years of use and dirt and also removed an ugly white paint that was done on top of its original green paint.

So happy to see it in its original glory so it can be used again for many years.

And another cute little ottoman, everything used for this one is vintage. The tapestry on top, the kilim on the side, the pouf's skeleton, the pompon trim and the lining fabric, all vintage.

With some love, eco friendly upcycling can be pretty gorgeous if you ask me :)

All pieces are available at StarHomeStudio.

Some Finished Furniture Pieces

 

I've been pretty busy with some new furniture pieces lately. If you've seen my previous blogpost you might have seen the skirt made with a vintage gobelin tapestry. We've been making such skirts for years but never used it for furniture.

We decided to give these chairs a makeover with tapestries, and look how beautiful they turned out. A far cry from when I found them with fake thorn leather and wonky legs.

Each chair is done with different tapestries, making each unique but they do match together. Even though we did not use fairytale themed tapestries like we often do for skirts they still remind me of fairytales.

After all I think almost all old fairytales have woodland environments, little red riding hood meets the olf in the forest. Snowwhite finds the hut of the dwarfs in the forest, Hansel and Gretel also got lost in a forest so yes no wonder.

I'm utterly delighted with how they turned out and of course, the fact that I saved three chairs from ending up in the landfill is a very important bonus.

I'm curious where they'll end up, I'm sure they'll fancy any space up as they are beautiful from all sides.

All three are available among many other unique furniture pieces at StarHomeStudio.

Something that somehow took me 18 months to finish was this 1930s room divider. It had no fabric and the wood was in a bad shape.

The paint was stubborn and I ended up buying a new sander as our old one was just not up to the job. Somehow stuff came in between but I'm glad it is now finished and looking maybe even better than it originally was as I used a vintage kilim instead of some fabric.

I did not cover the backside of the Kilim so the many hours of work can be admired.

The wood looks like new after sanding for many hours, staining, and oiling as the wood was very dry. I wish I had the space for it, I would have kept it for myself if I did! Also available at StarHomeStudio.

You can see a short video of the various it steps it went through on my Instagram.

Proof of Life

I can't believe it has been 5 months without blogging! That never happened, not even 1 month!

Things have been hectic and blogging and social media have suffered under it, I'm going to do my best to blog regurlarly again as I do love it.

You might remember that we bough a house almost 2 years ago. We first moved our working space, which took almost 6 months and then slowly the house as we were on zero budget and a lot needed to be bought and done on the new house as no one had lived in it  before a lot of things were missing, like a stove and warm water boiler etc.

After moving the house I worked on both the new house (garden, curtains, shelves and a million other things) but also continued emptying the massive amount of stuff from the old house (attic full of vintage items and furniture, thousands of books etc).

Our old house is a beautiful house full of wooden details but we have lived there for 20+ years and had 10 dogs and our working area it was very tired. As we hope to sell it for a good price I have been renovating it, myself and also with some paid help. Interior and exterior walls have been painted, some roof repair etc. I have been fixing a lot of furniture pieces that were previously in the attic. They are all vintage, I sold a bunch of furniture locally through Facebook marketplace and Letgo to empty the house (and for some cash) and also been fixing those that we are using to stage the house.

It has been tiring but also very satisfying to see these old sad pieces come to life again! This room's very dark wardrobe made it dark. As it wasn't in perfect vintage condition I did not feel guilty to paint it to make it fun. The paint work is inspired by the chair in the corner, which was brown before and did not have cushions. The fun blue fabric was also used for a long cushion on the bed. The mirror is also an old and very heavy piece that used to be gold and dreary. The pelican photo was taken by me in Florida.

Only the bed matrass was bought everything else we already had and was just a question of spending time and effort to make it.

Our pretty varanda that used to be our workspace is now a spacious living area. The couch set was a sad outdated brown 1970s set that we at one point wanted to give to a friend and didn't want (for free) and is now beautiful. I painted the wood off white and upholstered it with Gray-offwhite fabric. If we had no dogs I would have wanted it in the new house! There is also a table set on this veranda that also got painted and new cushions and a work table got a make over, I'm only showing parts!

This sad little cabinet had some missing pieces, and is now one of my favorite furniture pieces in the house. Not sure if I'm going to sell it once the house is sold as I love it now.

The seating area furniture belongs to the house but the wood was sad and dark.

A bit more spicey, light and fun and about 10 hours of paint work.

All these midcentury pieces were in the super full attic but now have been great to stage the house. They all needed work though.

I upholstered the sides as the wood was bad and dark.

The chair in the corner got the same fabric as the bed to match. I fixed the vanity (no before pics. And am going to fix a chair to put in front of it.

I forgot to picture many other pieces and I sold 5 large furniture pieces which made a lot of space.

I'll soon show the new house as well which finally has a garden, not entirely finished and a bit of a mess which is another story for another day :)

Trashure - Furniture Makeover

 It has been a while since I showed a full process of a furniture piece. My brand new phone's camera died so haven't been able to make any videos either.

I loved the shape of this chair unfortunately it had skeletal issues so I could only reuse its legs.

I cut an upcycled piece of MDF with rounded corners and attached the legs (after sanding and varnishing) to that.

I glued a piece of firm foam to the wood and stapled fabric to keep it in place.

I knitted about 12 meters of knitted tube with this handy 'machine' each row is turned by hand so it is a manual thing but goes of course faster than hand knitting.

 

I cut strips of foam and put those in the knitted tubes.

I then stapled the short ones side by side.

Woven the longer pieces in.

And then staped those too.

I love how it turned out! The lamp is also a project I did not so long ago, it was an old coat rack but the hooks were missing so I turned it into a cool standing lamp for our own home.

I love the fresh minty color, we got the yarn while traveling last year in Florida at a thrift store! So it is a very eco-friendly project.

I stapled a contrasting colored fabric to hide the staples and endings.

This one of a kind beauty is available at StarHomeStudio.etsy.com.