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
similar pair I use as host chairs in my dining room.)
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
favorite local home store, Simple Things, inspired me, and suddenly I had an idea.
I saw this chair on their showroom floor, and I was sold.
I feel like we may need to mount one of these signs permanently in our front yard. : ) We have hit the three year renovation mark now on our house (hard to believe), and I feel like we may be seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. Our Master Bathroom is the last major construction project on our list for now, and after this is over, it will be more "fun" decorating projects and room makeovers, and less white dust permeating everything everywhere.
Our bathroom, just like every project (especially in a nearly 100 year old house), has had some hiccups. Uneven ceilings and floors, last minute changes, pipes bursting, first floor raining, etc etc etc...I did want to tell you about one little hiccup we had in the shower.
In the original setup of our bathroom, the shower was really teensy, and there was a small linen closet next to it. So the logical plan would be to expand the shower by taking out that closet, right?
There was just one problem...
When I first saw this old phonograph cabinet at an estate sale, I was immediately attracted to the dentil molding and the fretwork. It was in two pieces, the top cabinet portion, and the bottom drawer piece. I paid around $80 for it, and I distinctly remember I needed a good amount of help getting it to the car. It is solid wood and weighed a ton!
I thought I still had the "before" photo on my phone, but when it took a swim in the toilet last year, I lost a bunch of images. But you can get the idea in the photo below. It was a dark wood with black hinges, and it was pretty scratched up.
We needed something in the bedroom to hold my husband's folded items, so I knew it would be perfect in there! The previous owner of this cabinet had the phonograph removed and added four drawers inside the doors. Storage galore! When I took it to my lacquer guy for its shiny new exterior, I decided I wanted the inside to be lacquered also.
I chose a pretty, creamy white for the outside, and a cool aqua blue on the inside.