FRENCH CHAIR with striped fabric

I had this navy blue striped fabric for a while and every time I would look at it I preferred the back

side. It had a great vintage look and when I was ready to upholster this chair I jumped in with both

 feet and went with the under side showing.

When upholstering with a striped fabric you must be a little more cautious and aware of where the

 pattern is laying. Be sure to center the top and bottom, and try to match up the lines on the seat with

  the back. You have to keep your fabric taught but not distort the stripes. Its not hard, you just have

 to keep double checking where things are. 

The frame was a dark mahogany color before I spray painted it in a creamy white mix of ASCP Old

 white & Pure white. The distressing was done with 220 sand paper and finished off with AS clear

 wax applied with a brush. The off white gimp trim has been hot glued into place over the fabric edge and to hide the staples.

Till next time ... Kristy

SEARS BONNET DRESSER french provincial inspiration

 

 

 

 I refurbished a vintage Bonnet Dresser available back in the day at Sears. These dressers and the matching pieces were hugely popular with moms and kids from the late sixties all the way into the early eighties. Some of the drawers on this one were not working well or were missing parts so I fixed them and removed the extra detail things from the fronts of the top 3 drawers. I sprayed it in a creamy white and added a new vintage set of Chippendale handles. It looks like there are 12 drawers but really the bottom ones are double deep making for 9 drawers.

  

 

 

If you are looking for a unique set of handles for a large dresser check out the popular

Misfit Chippendale sets listed at Firstfinds Etsy shop. You just never know what will catch your eye:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/193206085/12-misfit-chippendale-trios-shabby-chic

 

Till next time ... Kristy

FRENCH NIGHTSTANDS working with plywood

 

  

This nightstand started out as a home made little box made
completely of quarter inch plywood. I really like working
with plywood because it is super strong and can be worked
with the same way solid woods can be. Plywood in most cases
is even stronger than solid wood. Plywood is a sheet material
manufactured from thin layers or "plies" of wood veneer that
are glued together with adjacent layers having their wood
grain rotated up to 90 degrees to one another.

The process to make plywood has been around for about 200 years. Below left is the BEFORE

picture and you can see the quarter inch plywood used to make it. 

FRENCH ARM CHAIR blue and white

When I have a great French chair that needs a make over there are a few different directions I can take.

Below you can see how the chair looked before I started. I repaired the wiggly arms and I thought I might

 paint the fabric but I knew I wanted to paint the frame. Once I sprayed the frame in white, the fabric color

popped and looked really nice against the white. Thats when I realized cleaning the upholstery was an option

that had been forgotten. In this day and age and in my profession this starts to look like a long lost technique

reserved for my mothers generation. The fabric had been taken taken care of and a good cleaning was all

 that was needed to freshen it up. 

   

I painted the nail heads and trim then lightly distressed the frame to show a bit of the original dark finish.

I chose to wet distressed so I wouldnt sand through the walnut stain that had been used years before.

Underneath a spring needed some adjustments due to a strip of the burlap webbing coming un-nailed,

so I fixed all that then I stapled a new piece of striped vintage fabric across the bottom of the chair.

   

Till next time ... Kristy