countrygirl/cityworld

You can't beat cool old stuff.

It's true.

Now I know some people love things to be all new and sleek, but to me that just lacks character.  There is something to be said for a piece (or a person for that matter) that has some history. I think it's really hard to purchase modern home furnishings that look good and are not outrageously expensive.  

Although I'm sure some people would come to my apartment and think, "Holy hell, does she have a lot of old crap in this place."

But, I love old stuff!  I'm dying to go Lucketts Fair in Virginia or the mother of all antique shows, Brimfield!  Until my pockets deepen...or rather until they are filled with cash instead of deeply empty...I'll have to satisfy myself with the local flea market at the Ithaca Antique Mall.  

 The prices vary and I'm sure there is plenty of room to negotiate.  I did see a few vintage hankies I wanted to buy for making sachets, but I had zero cash on me.  Figures.  Maybe it was a blessing in disguise, because I did see plenty of things I wanted!

Mirror Door

I really wanted that 1930's nine patch!  I didn't even open it up to look at it.  It appeared to be in really good condition....torture!

  I always thought it would be cool to use a bunch of stained glass windows as a partition in a loft apartment.  In the movie High Fidelity, (they recently put it on HULU) , there is a scene where Rob Gordon (John Cusack) goes to Marie DeSalle's (Lisa Bonet) apartment and her bedroom is partitioned off with old windows.  It looks so arty and bohemian.  However, even if you aren't living a hipster industrial loft, stained glass still looks wonderful hung in front of a window or from a porch.

I really really really want to get a dresser with the mirror attached.  Sometimes I think I want a highboy dresser and then sometimes I think I want a low 6 drawer with a really big mirror.  This one would actually be perfect in my place now because its so little.

Currently, the always covetable and never affordable Anthropologie, has these neat industrial style lights in wire cages.  They use "Edison bulbs" which completes the look.  I saw a tutorial online where someone make a very cool pendent out a wire basket.  This one would be perfect for a huge pendent light over a table.  You would probably need to use the largest bulb to keep the proportion from looking weird.

Finally, vintage birdcages....all the rage right now....a planter...a lamp...?

Duh-DONE!

Finally, a finished product!  First we have some garage sale chairs.  Note the darker chair.

 * On a side note, when looking for chairs, (or any furniture for that matter) to upcycle, check for wobble-e-ness.  It is really hard to fix a wobbly chair.  I'm sure it is doable for some people, but my carpentry skills are not up to the task yet.

Anyway, a coat of KILZ primer, a few coats of Krylon Blue Ocean Breeze, a coat of matte sealent and a new seat....and we have an awesome new chair!  I cut the seat out of plywood with my jig saw.  Note to self, next time just buy a pine board because plywood is like...really really hard.  The seat fabric is an old Amy Butler print.

See I even put welting around the edge.  I'm very fancy.

    Now I just have to find someone who wants to buy it!  I have a few places who say they will let me put the chair in their store, but they want me to bring down like five chairs at once.  Time to get crack-a-lackin'!

I will finish this if it kills me

My red chair.  I'm so sorry you've sat striped of guts and fabric for so long.  I think we are finally ready to move forward!

I decided I didn't like the cherry stained legs and arms so I spray painted them a nice leafy green which coordinates with the green in the fabric.  I spent quite a bit of time laying out the foam and trying to determine which angle to attack this project from.  Finally, I realized I better just get to it.

I put a layer muslin, one inch high density foam, two layers of polyester batting topped with another layer of muslin.  I still have to put the final layer of upholstery fabric. This is how it looks so far.

 ummm..It's chair-esque at the very least.

This whole upholstery thing is not so easy.  I wish I was able to provide a tutorial along with my chair photos, but I'm really just trying to figure it out as I go....and by figure it out I mean staple gun it into submission.

You can't take it with you

I purchased this mirror at an estate sale.

Let's talk about estate sales.  I have only been to a few.  I love me a good garage sale, but I don't know much about this whole list signing-number taking-being in the first wave business.

Basically, an estate sale happens when someone dies and the surviving kin decide to liquidate the estate. An estate sale company is hired to run the sale for a percentage of the earnings or sometimes the company buys up all the stuff and then holds the sale.  This way the surviving relatives don't have to be hassled with the stress of hosting and organizing the sale themselves. 

Now I can see how some people might feel this is a bit vulture-esque, swooping in to scavenge some little old person's belongings at a deep discount before they are even cold in the ground.  

And frankly, it is kind of like that.

HOWEVER, I prefer to think of it this way.  We spend our whole lives buying things, making things, having things and in the end it is just stuff.  Now, don't get me wrong, I LOVE my stuff and have NO intention of adopting a minimalist lifestyle, but I think it is important to remember, "Don't love something that doesn't love you back." 

That being said...when I go to a sale where I know the person has died, I try to be respectful and I think, "Dear person who has passed on, Thanks for this awesome deal on this table, lamp, chair, vintage Diana camera still in the original box with film for $10 (KiRa totally found one of those!).  It is just what I wanted.  I'm gonna take it to my home, enjoy it and use it for years to come."

Weird, I know...but I really feel that way!  Once I got this adorable hand embroidered and appliqued table runner with strawberries...and I really love it.  I know someone spent hours sewing the strawberries and embroidering the leaves. I hope that they would be happy to think it has a new home where a fellow crafter appreciates the time it took to create.  I know I would.

Anyway, back to the STUFF! 

This groovy mirror.  I know, it was very very silver.  It's very big and very ornate.  Perhaps some spray paint and antiqueing glaze can bring out it's cottage chic glory?

Ehhhhhh?  Sorry for the darkish grainy pic.

I'm not sure if I like it.  I used this light greyish purple paint and the antiqueing glaze is very very dark...and the overall effect is kind of dark....kind of goth.  In retrospect I'm thinking I should have painted it white and diluted the glaze or used a brown stain instead.  Right now it's hanging on the wall near my dining table (doesn't that sound fancy) and I can repaint and restain if I decide it's loathsome.

Maybe some close up shots will help?  This is much truer to the color and what the glaze looks like.

 

The mirror is made of some weird heavy duty solid plastic.  The glass neatly screws into the frame so it was super simple to dismantle for painting.  I was glad I didn't have to screw around with taping off the glass.  I used VALSPAR antiqueing glaze in black.  They have tintable glaze but I bought the premixed color because it was cheaper. 

Let there be light!

I purchased this lamp for $4 at a garage sale.

Months ago I saw a lamp at HomeGoods that had a similar feel.  It was made up of a glass cylinder that you could put stuff inside.  It was not $4.  The glass globe in this lamp was filled with sand, pathetic looking shells, dried up twigs and milkweed fluff.

The first thing I did was take the lamp apart, dump out all the nature crap in the globe and wash it out.  I debated putting a little fake terrarium in the globe (KiRa's idea) or coating the inside with paint to make it opaque.  I knew I wanted to put the lamp on the table behind the sofa and it needed to be heavy.  Why would it crucial for the lamp to be heavy?  Because I have too many pets and they frequently like to using the sofa table as a launch pad.

I decided to fill the lamp with these "decorative accents" AKA green glass rocky things and green plastic gemstone looking things.

 I also decided to rewire the lamp, because the plug looked a little funky.  Honestly, rewiring is super simple.  I think it is worth it to rewire instead of worrying about frayed wires causing a fire or shocking someone.  I'm not very techy with electronics (I still don't understand why the television needs three different remotes)  and mechanical things, but even I can do this.  I've done it a few times.  You can buy the little kit and then once you feel more confident you can just purchase the components you need.  

Rewiring a lamp is very simple, satisfying, and a big money saver.  Lamps are $$$.  If you can rewire, you can pick up an old lamp for cheap, paint it, change the shade, rewire and you are ready to go!.  

Here is the lamp all ready to do it's lamply duty.  The shade isn't perfect, but its what I had on hand.  

This was ugly now it's not

Enter dirty rusty metal and glass topped patio table found on the deck in my rental apartment.  

Hello, poor sad table with bird poop.  Time for a make-over.

 

Step 1

First, I gently sanded the table to remove any peeling paint or especially rusty spots.  I have to admit I didn't obsess over every nook and cranny.  It's just a patio table, not an antique.

 

Step 2

Next I sprayed the table with some primer to help with bonding the paint to the table and give a smoother finish.  It's worth the time to prime!  The finished result always looks so much better.

Step 3

Spray paint!  Always go slow, use short bursts, a few light coats will give even coverage while a heavy coat will give drips.  And no one want drips. 

 

Ta-dah!

Much mo' better and ready to hold up summer drinks...Mojitos anyone?

Loving the yellow spring flowers with my blue mason jar and new blue table!

 
 

The chair

Hopefully, I can start the actual upholstery next time.

Sometimes I garbage pick...

...because people throw out PERFECTLY good stuff...like this chair frame I found alone by the side of street next to some ACTUAL garbage.  I knew this chair was not garbage....it wasn't even wobble-y.

Check it oooout!

 

My plan is to get two pieces of really thick substantial foam and make two cushions with some welting and a zipper so I can wash them.  I can even tie the cushions in place on the spindles so they don't slide around.  I'm also considering using oil cloth or "sunbrella" fabric so it could be an outdoor/porch chair. (Don't laugh, someday I will have a porch...or maybe I will have a friend who has a porch and I will give them an amazing refurbished upcycled chair and they will be prostrate with gratitude and THEN people won't tease me for garbage picking).  The low silhouette of the frame kind of lends itself to lounging.  I could even spray paint it with some of that high gloss stuff.  It comes in so many colors now.

So many possibilities!

The Great Red Chair Experiment: Part Two

Continuing on in my first foray into the world of reupholstery.  My next step was to use the red vinyl pieces to make brown paper pattern pieces.  You could just lay the old fabric onto the new fabric, but the vinyl was weirdly stick and dirty.  NOTE - It is important to label the pattern pieces with any notes you might want to remember for later.  For example, if there was a section that was snipped into to fit around something or an excess of fabric for a folder corner.  It's always a good idea to purchase a bit of extra fabric just for emergencies.

I made a point to avoid choosing a fabric with a specific direction, but later realized it did kind of have a direction.  By direction, I mean a fabric that will look odd if "facing" another way.  I could tell the direction of my fabric by looking at the pattern motifs.  This one big tulip ALWAYS faces up, so I needed to be sure all the tulips face up. I also avoided stripes (too easy for it to look crooked) and plaid (like stripes only worse). 

If you do decide to upholster something with stripes or to match your fabric.  More power to you!  That is a headache I don't wish to face at this stage of the game.

Lucky for me, just as I was starting to think I bit off more then I could chew, this fine feline decided to assist me.

Oh the joys of pet ownership.

ANYWAY, once Dante Dangercat decided he was bored of helping and had to continue on to the next item on his busy agenda (mainly lounging on the windowsill) I was able to move on to the next task.  The next step is to lay out all of the pattern pieces onto the fabric, making sure everything is in the right direction blah blah blah all that stuff I said before.

Finally, time to cut out all the pieces.  Next time I'll start putting it all together...it's been pretty smooth sailing so far.  I keep waiting for the snag in the plan.  Don't call me negative, it's just my nature.

The Great Red Chair Experiment

I have been searching for the perfect chair to reupholster.  I wanted some kind of Louis XVI (is that a 16? Whatever, you know what mean) Frenchy-looking chair with ornately carved legs and a circular back.  I see them ALL over NYC in stores, as part of the displays or decor.  The chair is usually painted a funky color and upholstered with a modern print.  Sometimes it is "shabby-chic-ified."

I can't find one of these chairs ANYWHERE.  Well ok, that is a LIE but they are still $$$ and we all know my favorite price is FREE.

I purchased this chair at a garage sale for $5 bucks.  I didn't even want it because it is ugly.  The woman selling it wanted $15 and then when I looked uninterested she said $10!  My mom wanted me to get it, but I was still like "meh."  Then the woman said "FIVE BUCKS!"  So I caved.

Here it is. In all it's red vinyl glory.

Good Bones?  I hope!  I liked the little decorative tacks and the detail on the front of the arms.  Mostly, I liked that my mom said it would be easy to reupholster.  (famous last words).

The next step is to carefully remove all of the fabric, or in this case the red vinyl.  This is done by removing all of the tacks holding the fabric down. They make a special little tack remover tool, you can get them online or maybe at a craft store.  The removers make the task go quicker and are shaped in a way to avoid gouging the wood as much as a screwdriver.  I borrowed one from my mom's friend (Thanks Yvonne!). You can't just slice and dice the old fabric because you need the pieces to create your new pattern with the pretty new fabric that you carefully selected at Joann Fabrics to coordinate with but NOT matchy-match the yellow chairs you just created.

I am not an expert, but it is crucial to label the pieces as you remove them.  The experts actually recommend that you take detailed notes, draw pictures or take photos  Especially when it comes to little twitchy details like...I need to remember that they used a cardboard strip to secure the arm panels down.

The cotton batting inside the chair looked kind of gross, it was just disintegrating.  I was relieved to see it was bug free and didn't smell weird or anything.  I am going to use poly cotton batting and foam.

I removed all of the vinyl panels, the cotton batting and horsehair stuffing (kind of ew) and now the chair looks like this.

 

Next step is to do whatever you want to do (paint, sand, stain, varnish) to any wooden parts of the chair.  I want to strip and restain the legs.  I probably could just sand and revarnish them, but I wanted to try out of some these paint stripper products for future knowledge when I might strip paint from an entire chair.

Time for a product review!  (cue music)

Citristrip claims to be a safer paint stripper and can be used indoors, which would come in handy if you were stripping crown molding or something you can't easily remove and bring outside.  I used it outside because that is much much easier.

I can't judge Citristrip against other chemical products because this is my first time using this stuff.  I did a bunch of reading on the internet to figure out what product to use.  I would use this product again, but I would NOT buy the spray can because it goes all over the place.  I would get the kind in a jug and apply it with a brush.  I would also have put down some cardboard instead of getting orange goop all over the gravel driveway.  It seems that the trick of these this stuff is to really glop it on.  You want the product to stay wet.  If it dries on whatever you are trying to take paint off of it will just harden and become another layer of stuff to remove.

Safety first people!  Even thought it has a friendly orange smell and has the word "safer" on the can, this stuff is still a toxic chemical.  You must wear special gloves that it can't eat through (Hardware stores will have those gloves on shelves near the strippers).  You should wear eye goggles too.  After all you are scraping and this stuff gets flicked around.  You are supposed to use a special plastic scraper (safer for the wood) to remove the gunk, but I used a metal putty knife because that is what I had. Lastly, you can't scrap the goop into a plastic bag (it will eat through the plastic), so get a jar or a coffee can.

And have some rags on hand for quick clean ups.

I sprayed the Citristrip onto the legs and let it sit for 30 minutes, scraped and reapplied.  In hindsight, I should probably have let it marinate longer.

The Citristrip looks like this at first.

Then it starts to bubble up and crack through the varnish.

I scraped all the goo off and dumped it into and old jar.  Then I wiped down the legs with mineral spirits and steal wool to remove any Citristrip residue and sanded any rough patches.  There is still quite a bit of stain left on the legs.  I think it would come off with one more application and scraping but I'm going to leave it on because I'm restaining it the same color anyway.

Next up, creating the pattern and cutting the new fabric!  With a special guest!