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

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.

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.

Happy Coincidences

A few weeks ago we saw an L-shaped couch that seemed perfect for our new home. It was somewhere between our old and new home, pretty high in the hills. It wasn't as soft as I hoped it would be and it turned out to be brown not gray as it seemed in the pictures. However the same lady had also this coffee table and when I said I liked it, it turned out she was selling that too so I didn't leave empty-handed.

Of course, I loved its legs and bought it to turn in to a big statement ottoman.
The top was of course very securily attached like everything that needs to be removed. The top was the exact right side for a table we have, I still need to paint it but it is already attached.

The legs I sanded and then painted in a distressed gray and then varnished it.

I had to do everything twice as things didn't go as planned first time around.
But with many layers, linings it finally worked out.

Deciding last finishing touches.

Tadaa! The top is made with a kilim we bought this Summer during a small local auction, the size was PERFECT for it (just like its original top was perfect for another table.

I love the color combo, and the happy coincidences of all the perfectly sized things were extremely satisfying.

Although it seems just gray it also has the same pink and mint green as the kilim in its paintwork, but very vague.

I upholstered the foam first with gray fabric as the kilim has weaving holes, the gray fabric now pops through giving it an extra pattern.

This one of a kind beauty is available at StarHomeStudio.

With all the moving this will most likely be our last furniture project for this year, but we have plenty of pieces in the shop.