Chairish Color Challenge

So we've all heard of Chairish right? If you haven't then you need to go check out their website ASAP! Chairish is an online marketplace for vintage furniture and home decor. They have vintage finds from all over the country for every room in your home. It is a great place to find unique and one of a kind furnishings.

I was contacted by Chairish last week about creating a bold color mood board designed around one of their many vintage accent chairs. It's no secret I have a chair fetish so I was happy to oblige! I choose this Mid-Centruy Beauty to work with:

I loved the color and the clean lines. I paired it with a dark grey sofa and the design quickly took a moody yet cozy turn. Maybe it's because fall is just about here but I would love to be sitting in this room sipping some coffee right now!

MCM Chair Rescue

Hey Blog Friends! I have a fun makeover to share today but wanted to talk a little bit about what has been going on over here lately. My lack of blogging has to do with the fact that I have been fortunate enough to pick up some design work recently- Yay!! 

Unfortunately the kind of work I have is not "pretty" as in I don't have any fun pictures to share. I was lucky enough to win a bid to help with a master suite/ kitchen addition to a home in Texas. So it's all construction document/ CAD work for now. We're just at the beginning stages of the design- maybe towards the end I may have some more to share and maybe when the project is complete the owners and architect will let me share some pics with you all. But that is why the ole blog has been quiet lately.

Now- onward to chair makeover madness!

Remember me asking about these chairs last week? 

A little bit about them: A friend was getting rid of them because the seats were missing. For most people- yes I can understand tossing the chairs. But for me new seats are an easy fix! 

I loved the back and the frames were in great shape. And thank you for the comments on what to do with them. If I were keeping them for myself I would have definitely kept the wood as is. But because I'm putting them in the shop and because the wood was chipped and needed fixing in some places- matching the stain would have been tough. So in the end I painted them white.

And went away from the traditional fabric (as many of you suggested) and choose a more structured pattern:

To fix the seats I used some scrap plywood and made a template:

Which I cut and out and upholstered. Then was all finished!

Chair Christmas Tree Cat Action

I love the detailing on the back and legs- simple but still interesting. 

I'm so glad I was able to rescue these chairs from the garbage! I think they turned out awesome.

And another quickie- I had found some old window frames being tossed out the other day. One I painted red (and already sold) but was able to snap a picture of this one:

These are a quick fix if you happen upon some in your town. Just cut out some hardboard, paint with chalkboard paint, wood glue and staple into place and Voila! New chalkboard. :) 

If your curious I have a Facebook Page promoting my shop. Check it out if you want at

C. & S. Finds

Opinion Por Vor Vour??

So a few weeks ago I scored these awesome Mid Century Chairs for free! Jeah!!! (Anyone else watched that show- totally guilty pleasure)

I love the back of them- something I would love to have in my own home. You know, if I didn't already have an over abundance of chairs and a booth in a furniture shop to keep full. They are missing the seats but that's an easy fix.

Anyway- my problem is this:

I'm not sure how to revamp them? My first thought was go bold! I have some bronze Modern Masters Paint I think would look really cool with these. But I didn't want them to be too crazy since I am reselling them. So I have some extra fabric on hand I thought would go well with the bronze:

But... is the fabric to traditional for the chairs? I like mixing it up but I'm afraid this might be a bad mix up.

Would the chairs be better with a simpler more modern fabric pattern? Should I still go for a metallic frame? I LURVE these chairs and don't want to screw them up. I find it hard to choose a design path when I don't know my end client.

Should I just go with my gut and do something I would like (Not necessarily the option above...)

Any advice is much appreciated!

And in closing- a picture of a cute baby :)

Stay warm everyone!!

A Few Upholstery Before and Afters

Since I have been trying to get through with projects quickly lately to put them in the shop I have been forgetting to take a lot of process pictures- sorry to anyone who enjoys those! First up I wanted to share a chair I found and Craigslist and had high hopes for:

The fabric was blue and had a very office-y feel to to. I was in love with the chrome frame and curved back. I knew with the right fabric it would be a gem! So I set to work tearing the fabric off and stapling the new.

A Sunny Chair Makeover

~Before we dive into our makeover today I just want to take a moment to remember those who lost their lives and were affected by the events on 9/11~

So I lost my first Fantasy Football Game. I thought that maybe I could make a come back in Monday night's games but alas it was not to be. Oh well, try again this weekend! And do you know what day it is?

That commercial cracks me up!

Anyway- let's get to the subject at hand here. Today I wanted to share with you a chair makeover that I had finished up last week. Remember these two sad guys? 

I bought them for super cheap because one had a broken leg. (See how I fixed it here)

After that was taken care of it was time for painting. I've been wanting to try chalk paint for a while now and thought this was a good opportunity to see what the fuss is all about. Using a recipe I found online I went the plaster paris route. Which included mixing plaster of paris with water:

Then adding my paint (I used Pantone Chamomeille) 

I love how thick and creamy it is!

Overall my first chalk paint experience was a good one. I can see why everyone loves this type of paint! A little bit of paint goes a long way, it goes on smooth, and not a lot of prep work is required.

Ta-Daaaa!!!

I used some leftover Dwell fabric from my slipcovered chair, I thought the modern grey print worked well to contrast with the traditional shape of the chairs and the soft yellow paint. And the chalk paint was great at getting just the right amount of chippy-ness when I sanded the details.

To seal the paint I didn't go the traditional soft wax method as is used in most chalk paint applications. Instead I went with a non-gloss sealant. The chairs are for sale and I wanted to be sure they are super durable.

I like how they turned out, a far cry from where they started! And I'm a new chalk paint enthusiast. 

Latest Thrifty-ness

I feel like I've gone through a long dry spell at the thrift store lately. Besides the bamboo trays I bought last week it's been slim pickins. I don't know if it competition from other people looking for similar things or if people haven't been donating as much the last few months.

All this changed however yesterday when I popped in just looking for a picture frame to repaint. I found a few goodies to fill my basket!

First up is this pair of chairs:

The last thing I need in my life right now is chairs but they were only $5 each! I thought they had good detail and would be worth making over. 

I'll probably pawn them off to a friend when I'm finished overhauling them.

Next up is this lovely duo-

I found the frame I needed and winner of a tray circa 1975 (I'm guessing?)

Both these guys will be hard to recognize when I'm done with them!

Have you had any luck at the thrift store lately? Or have you encountered a dry spell as well?

DIY Candles Holder out of Chair Legs

Hello All! Today I have a fun DIY for you that costs next to nothing to make. I found an old chair in the garbage (no picture :/) and picked it up for my friend who is a photographer. She had been looking for a chair that she could saw the legs off of, paint a fun color and use as a prop in her photos like so:

Source: Mia Bella Photography (check out her site she is awesome!)

Since I cut the legs off the chair for her I was left with a bunch of spindles. 

And Then There Were Two

Happy Monday Everyone! And Happy Veterans Day Weekend. Special shout out to all military members out there- especially my Hubs. Go Air Force!

Seriously- Thank you to all U.S. Military Members for all you do and the daily sacrifices that you make.

Today I want to share with you my finished reupholstered mid-century chairs. Woo Hoo! Yay for finally having a pair of matching, good looking, non upholstery falling off, chairs in our living room!

Modern Wood Veneer Wall Art

You know those projects that you think might be pretty easy to do? So you go for it thinking you'll be done with it at the end of the day, have an awesome project to show off on your blog, only to have it be more difficult than you thought and anything that could go wrong does?


Ya, that was me yesterday. Hence this very late almost didn't happen because I was going to throw this project out the window blog post. Why am I sharing this with you? Well I while back I made a commitment to share more of the truth of what happens with some of my projects; they don't all go smoothly.


So here we go; with some persistence I was successful with this project in particular!!

I had ordered some wood veneer wall covering samples a while back; thinking I could do something pretty cool with them with my Silhouette. 

If you want to try and order some of your own I ordered mine from www.koroseal.com. They came quickly and were free, I just had to fill out an order form. An excited Rep may call you about your upcoming "project" your choosing samples for- I just thanked her and told her we were still deciding and would let her know....


After I received my sample inspiration struck. Last week I was talking about Mid Century furniture designers; and how I wish I could own some fabulous pieces. Since I don't see myself purchasing any in the near future I thought some miniature versions would suffice in the meantime.


I downloaded images of a few of my favorite Eames chairs:

Then resized and cut them out them in Photoshop so I could import them into the Silhouette program.

After importing into Silhouette I used the "Trace" Tool cut out the shape. Otherwise the machine was only recognizing a square instead of the chair image I wanted. Then I set my print settings to cut the veneer. This took some trial and error to get the right cut depth and speed as you can see:

I wasted two sheets of my veneer with cutting problems which really irritated me. This was probably more of a user error than a Silhouette issue though.

Finally I found the right cut settings. I discovered that using the Card Stock thickness option, a slow cut speed of 3, and setting the depth of the needle to 9, and choosing the double cut option worked best.

Finally success!! It popped out pretty easily but I had to use a nail file to sand down a few of the edges that didn't cut perfectly.

Next for my wood panel I used a piece of scrap pine board I cut down to size, then sanded and painted white.

I used all purpose Gorilla Glue to adhere my veneer chair to the wood panel. I set a book on top to hold the veneer chair down. 

I thought I had used hardly any glue, but when I lift my book up later I discovered that glue had seeped out everywhere! My panel was ruined! Ugh I was so upset. I didn't want to start all over cutting and painting a whole new piece of wood. And I didn't want to waste even more veneer.

Instead I was lucky enough to be able to peel the veneer off the painted wood. Thank goodness!! See where the glue had seeped out? What a mess!

SInce the veneer came off cleanly I flipped my wood panel over and tried again. This time I barely used any glue at all. 

I was hoping to have a whole Eames Veneer Chair Collection to show you today but after all that trial and error I'm glad to have one for now. I like the way it came out. You could even do different color paint for the background depending on the look your going for.

Have a great rest of your Monday!!