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Beautiful

DIY - Studded Ottomans

BEFORE

AFTER

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Two little ottomans bought from the thrift shop. The before pic doesn't include the tiny plastic legs these came with.

My pops ripped out the feet and nailed a thick piece of plywood to the bottoms (you can kind of see it in the before pic). The plywood was necessary for the instillation of the new feet. I upholstered them with leather purchased from ebay, and then added the studs.

The feet are actually fence finials from Home Depot, which I've sanded, stained, sanded, varnished, sanded, varnished, sanded, and varnished again, phew. These little legs were very time consuming but I liked the shape so much I almost didn't mind.

DIY - Studded Rocker

BEFORE

AFTER

This little rocker came from the thrift shop. It was beat up, painted millions of times, and just plain ugly. I painted it a soft gray and added a leather seat patch which I attached and framed with silver studs.

Her Boyfriend's Chair

This is another Craftster find. This chair is just brilliant. Smrjunior says..."my boyfriend is studying industrial design, which is basically anything that can be mass-produced. This quarter, their project was to design and build a chair. I think I saw him, on average, about an hour a day, despite the fact that we live together. It totally sucked, but I think the end result was probably worth it..." and I'd have to agree.

DIY - Ice Cream Chairs

AFTER

BEFORE

There is an old man, he auctions off old furniture the dear departed have left behind. He himself is a collector of all things wonderful and old. But his one weakness is not being able to let go of anything he finds beautiful. So he stashes it....in the tiny trailer home he shares with his long-suffering wife. When the objects-of-pleasure began pushing the tenants out of their home, the man packed them tight on a wagon, tied blue tarp around and pushed them out into the cruel weather. Months passed, years even, the beautiful things held down by rope and protected by tarp disintegrated, molded, rotted.

We met that man and he led us onto this wagon and we saw all the worm-eaten wood. But we also noticed these four little bentwood ice cream chairs. Now he has more room to store ever more rotting wood.

These four were covered with peeling paint. But on such small and round limbs I didn't dare use the sander. I wanted to try stripping the paint off. What a nightmare. Each chair took me 2 hours to strip, not to mention the burning hands, the mounds of paper towels, and the general mess and discomfort. I thought after the chemical bath they would emerge looking brand new, ready to stain. Boy was I wrong. They were dirty, sticky and absolutely positively not in any condition to receive stain. I decided painting them was the next best option.

Such a long renovation for such small things.