I have a special guest here for you to oogle over. Twice Lovely rocks the furniture refabs! Another creative blog to follow peeps! Please give a warm IC welcome to Ann Marie. Take it away…
I want to thank Beckie for inviting us to do a guest post on her blog! I’m a long-time fan, but will try to contain the gushing and keep the hero-worship at tolerable levels. We are truly honored.
As an introduction to those of you who may not know us, I’m Ann Marie, one-half of the dynamic duo know as Twice Lovely. My best friend Cara and I set out a few short months ago to put our backgrounds in Fine Art and Interior Design (respectively) to use by making cast-off, out-of-date, or otherwise down-trodden furniture- fresh, stylish, and lovely once more.
Cara and I are both artistic personalities, and as such, we LOVE color! It makes my little artistic heart sing when a client comes (as one recently did) and wants something colorful and totally unique. Even better when they totally trust your vision and you can completely let loose. You can start with a bunch of ho-hum:
…and end up with something really fabulous:
But what is a girl to do when you don’t know the particular direction to go with a piece? Well, here’s a very effective method that we utilize from time to time and one we also suggest to clients who look at us with a blank stare when we ask “What do you want to do with this piece? What’s your vision?”
Find an inspiration room.
The internet is a VAST resource to find gorgeous rooms that fit your particular style, with colors that make you jump up and down, and treatments that make your heart go pitter-pat. Better Homes and Gardens, Decor Pad, and My Home Ideas are just a few of the great resources out there, a virtual plethora of pictures to peruse until your heart’s content.
Cara found this (quite lovely) room:
…and asked herself, “Self. If it were to live in this room, what would this coffee table look like?”
Here was her answer…
I recently acquired a set of four chairs and a round pedestal table from two separate Roadkill Rescues. (Yes. All free. I know. Hate me.) They were naturally destined to be a set.
Now, I am a HUGE fan of the lovely Miss Mustard Seed and quite inspired by her lovely guest room.
Red happens to be my favorite color, and I love the touches of red, with the white and the naturals intermixed, but I especially loved the clever way she used the jute upholstery webbing to trim out the curtains and tie up the faux roman shade (genius!!):
And Martha used it too for this rug. (If it’s good enough for Martha and Miss Mustard Seed, it’s most certainly good enough for me!)
So, with my Roadkill Rescue dining set, I asked myself, “Self. If it were to be in Miss Mustard Seed’s guest bedroom, what would this dining set look like?” (I know dining sets don’t go in guest rooms. Work with me here!) And here’s my dining set, a la Miss Mustard Seed (complete with some hand-painted details):
Ah, what a little paint can do… Speaking of paint, are you all ready to link up your projects at The CSI Project’s Paint Party? I know the TL gals will be there with bells on. Now I just need to decide which project to link up… 🙂
Thanks again, Beckie, for letting us take over today! Check out our blog at Twice Lovely to see more of what we do!
Oooh fun ideas with paint! Thanks for all the beautiful pictures to drool over too!
I have a sofa table that needs help. I keep staring at it and thinking bad things about it and what should be done to it. I was going to paint four letter words all over it but now…now that I've seen this fabulous table, I'm going to copy this idea and paint it red! This is great! Thank you so much for the inspiration.
Kelli, The red I used was Cherry Red by Krylon. It's a fantastic deep but not obnoxious red. If you try it, make sure to use a dark primer (I used gray primer for this table.) Good luck!
What a great redo! I love love love that red and white fabric. You did such a great job painting the table too. But how did you do the webbing on the chairs? Can we see the back of one?
Anita, That fabric was a total steal at Joanns. It's reversible. I believe it was originally like $40 fabric that was clearanced for $12, then they had half off clearance fabrics, so it was only $6 (I only needed one yard for this project.)
There's nothing tricky on the back of the chairs. The webbing is attached on the front. I first used some hot glue to attach the webbing to the chair around the hole that was left when I removed all the weathered caning. Then I went back around and used steel upholstery tacks to reinforce the hot glue and add a little decorative touch as well.
What a fantastic makeover. I did a blog post about the different uses for jute webbing.
http://decortoadore.blogspot.com/2010/02/creative-friday-freebie.html
Drop by for my French Tote Giveaway.
Seriously talented chicas here!!! BEautiful transformations. I can't wait to see what they link up. No doubt, it will be FAB!
~Amanda
I seriously gasped at these pieces. I love what you did because I love red, but that tree dresser is so perfectly me. I might have to do something like that myself.
Thank you, Becky, for allowing us to guest post on you saWEET blog.
Love how you refab items. That hand painting is on point!
~Tootles!
Awesome ideas! LOVE that dresser . . .
The painting around the edge of that table is perfect. The whole package turned out great. And it was free off the side of the road. Amazing!