make me pretty – sassy red chair

I have been playing it too safe lately. Too much cream and pale gray. So I decided to step out of my comfort zone. It’s time for red!

Here is the chair before:

I am still loving the red and pale blue combo so I decided to pair up my bright red chair with a blue and white chevron seat cushion.

I took this little lovely over to the West End Antiques Mall never really expecting it to sell. I have developed a theory that only my more conservative pieces sell there. But this chair proved me wrong. I obviously still have no idea how things work over there! She sold in a couple weeks.

PS – This is not the first time I’ve worked on this style chair. See the other re-do here.

 

 

 

 

the boys room – phase 1

I have been dreaming up this shared room for Jasper and Emerson for months now. Never mind that Emerson is only 15 months old and not quite ready for the car bed, or all the lego’s that Jasper leaves lying around. I figure I would just set it up and when E is ready we will move him in.

So over the holiday break I drove up to Ikea by myself (yes! party time) and bought a new bed for Jasper. I was pretty impressed with myself that I got it onto my cart, into my car and fully assembled by myself. (ok, so there were some extremely strong Ikea workers who helped me – the box weighed 106 pounds!)

Jasper loves his new big boy bed and there is an awesome play area underneath.

I found this strange shelf/largest spice rack in the world, in the alley and new I would do something with it. It’s perfect for all of the boy’s tiny toys. Emerson loves taking all the toys off and putting them back on again.

Emerson is set to inherit the car bed from Jasper, who luckily received it from our awesome friend Tiffany!

There are more projects to come – artwork on the walls, a piece of fabric made into a rug and a shelf to get all the stuffed animals out of the way (painted purple if Jasper has his way!) but I just couldn’t resist giving you a sneak peak!

make me pretty – crazy victorian chair

I was walking through this crazy labyrinth of an estate sale and stumbled across this chair. It has a strange shape but I kind of love it. I didn’t actually try sitting in it until I got it home. This chair is super uncomfortable – the back feels like a rock!

And the whole thing is dark and depressing. I have to bust out the cream paint!

So when I started to take the chair apart I found this crazy hay bale cushion. WTF? Someone had reupholstered this chair recently and they left this in? It had to come out!

I pulled out all of the hay and put in new webbing. Then I put in a piece of soft, comfy foam and covered that with batting. I put a layer of batting on the back too.

Then I covered the seat and chair back with this gorgeous fabric I found at u-fab. It reminds me of watercolors and adds the touch of modern that I think this old chair needs. I made my own trim and decided to double it up on top but only do one layer on the bottom.

Here she is: