Oh boy, am I excited about today's post!! I had this idea months ago, and I am so happy to have brought it to fruition, and I am even more happy to finally share it with you!
The story begins on a trip this past summer to see a good friend of mine who lives in Northern California. She took me to the most amazing restaurant in St. Helena called French Blue.
(I wrote about it here) The food was amazing, but I was completely swept away by the decor. It was light and bright and organic feeling, and at the time, we were just finishing
the 300 square foot addition off of our kitchen that had a similar feel as far as natural light and lots of windows. I fell in love with these shelves, and it is hard to tell from this photo, but they are made of an iron grid material.
Shortly after I returned home from this trip, I emailed French Blue and asked about the shelves. I wondered, "Could I order them?" The reply was swift and disappointing, as everything was made on site specifically for French Blue.
Super kind of them to respond back to me though, right?
I thought I could order the iron material, but after a little research, even that was a little out of my price range. Since I had splurged on lighting (
see here and
here) more than planned
(totally worth it by the way), I knew I needed to make this happen on the cheap.
And then, my friends, the DIY stars aligned, and I found two eight foot pieces of iron in a local salvage yard for $30. It was a complete surprise, as I was looking for something totally different.
Side Note: My husband, when previewing this post, called the above photo "Inspiration" and the below photo, "Desperation", ha!
Now to most people, these pieces probably look like bad locker room shelves, but I knew they could make shelves just as amazing as the ones at French Blue. The problem was the sizing. They were 24" wide, and I needed them to be cut down to 12"; therefore, cut in half.
(The two pieces would make four shelves, which was what I was wanting.) I also needed them to be six feet long, instead of eight feet long. And because of all the cuts, the iron would probably need some extra strips of bracing. Now I'm pretty handy, but welding, I cannot do. Lucky for me, there was a guy that worked at the salvage yard that told me he could do all of this for $40. Done and done.
A couple of weeks later, I went to pick them up, and that's where the fun began. Painting these babies.
Here we are today picking up where we left off. In case you missed it, you can read all about my DIY shelves you see in the photo above in this post, and you can learn how to create a baby's breath flower arrangement in this post.
So now...on to the malachite chairs. I love blue and green, and there is so much blue in the rest of the house, that when we added the room off of the kitchen, I knew I wanted to incorporate a lot of green in there to play off of the greenery that comes through the windows surrounding the room.
I found these vintage cane chairs at an estate sale last March. I LOVED the large scale caning, and it was in perfect, I mean, per-fect condition. The chairs are heavy, and I really liked the bamboo accent on the arms and legs. These are classic chairs which will always look stylish and can work in a variety of room styles. Best of all, the chairs still had the little "Made in Italy" brass tag on the bottom. I love little details like this!
I was on the fence about selling them, but they were listed and sold in a matter of hours. I will tell you, I was a bit sad. Although I can't remember what happened, the buyer decided to buy another pair of chairs, so these were on the market again. My dear friend, Kristen, told me I would regret selling them, and she was so right! (thanks girl)
So I kept them.
Clearly, the burnt orange velvet material was not going to work, so I needed to decide what to reupholster them in.
I have long been a fan of malachite. I can clearly remember going to a friend's house in the 80's for a family Christmas party and thinking their malachite dinnerware was soooooo pretty. Anyone have these back then?
Hello Everyone! Hope you had a great weekend. It has been much warmer, and dare I jinx it, spring-like in my neck of the woods. I feel for you out there who are still covered in ice and snow. (well, unless you really enjoy ice and snow :) )
If you have been reading awhile, you know how much I love buying antique or vintage furniture pieces and giving them new life through upholstery. You can find some really interesting shapes and great bones in old pieces, and although discovering them before someone else does is getting a bit harder (don't you think so?), the end result is well worth it.
While doing some friend visiting and furniture hunting in Austin a couple of years ago, I went to an estate sale and found this $40 chair. I do have a love for this type of chair, which I lovingly refer to as the Mad Hatter. (I have a 
It has lived in my garage for a long time now as I waited for the perfect space for it. It came as pictured with no cushion, and at some point, someone took a marker to it, but I just couldn't sell it. Finding this type of chair is rare, and I knew it had a spot somewhere in my home. A trip into my 