Freedom Friday: Five Awesome Furniture Upcycles

Today’s inspiration comes from the world of upcycling.  I am always pretty amazed by what people can do with old furniture.  These transformations take you from the ordinary to a completely different extraordinary piece of furniture!  Be sure to click on the links for tips on how these projects were done.

From this ordinary wooden bed…

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…to this beautiful bench!

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From this antiquated worn out chest of drawers to this beautiful hall seat!

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Here’s one nearly every woman would love. From this child’s wardrobe….

 

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To this very practical one-of-a-kind accessory display cabinet.  Love it!!

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No before and after pictures on this next picture but you get the idea (okay you know my love for books).

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Want a way to transform your entranceway? This last piece is a great one to tackle if you are feeling inspired because the link brings you to step-by-step photo instructions.  So beautiful, I would pay to comission it.

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Feeling inspired?

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Spray and Car Paint On Furniture

A while back, fellow Blogger Abigail Ahern asked if anyone attempted to spray paint furniture using car paint.  I thought that was a very intriguing idea and would be fun to try.  I had a small table to experiment on so I did a bit of research and then purchased Canbrush car spray paint in Candy Red metallic and a can of red spray-paint primer and voila!

 

It was quick, easy and fun.  I added clear gloss varnish to make it look lasting which made the finish softer and less metallic but I still like it.

 

I am off to the US for my daughter’s wedding so the blog will be quiet for a while.  Till then!  🙂

 

Chalk Paint Virgin

I Was Convinced

I had put my foot down.  I had said I would never succumb to the lure of chalk paint.  I totally dislike the shabby-chic look.  I prefer furniture to be elegantly re-finished (to the best of my ability).  I had gone into my local antique shop and had seen furniture re-finished with chalk paint and it was hideous.  No thank you!

Then This Happened

Then I purchased a coffee table from eBay painted with…you guessed it…chalk paint.  It was not distressed and it looked great so I made a deal with the seller and bought it.  I went with my friend Liz to collect it and got to talking to the nice lady who had re-finished the table with Annie Sloan paint and I ended up learning some very interesting things about chalk paint and the wheels in my brain started turning.  Most importantly, I learned that you can use chalk paint on virtually anything.

The Problem

I have these arches which are part of  my bedroom built-in, cream cupboards.  Unlike the rest of the fixed units, these arches are made of plastic and these arches had turned yellow.  As you can see from the picture below, they no longer matched the rest of the unit. Very disappointing!

 

 

The Solution

So unto the Annie Sloan website here in the UK I went.  Ooohhh! Great, exciting website with lots of photos and videos and information.  I found my colour paint straight away called ‘original’ and they came in tester pots!  Just to be on the safe side, I bought a tester pot in another shade of cream and one in provence (for another project).  I also bought the soft wax in clear. Some very little work later and now it looks like this:

Pretty good, huh?

 

My Pick Of The Day-Five Unique Wall Clocks

This morning I was browsing the internet and came upon some unique wall clocks that I thought I would share.  I love clocks but as the ticking drives my husband mad, we don’t have many in the house.  Still I love the unique one of a kind clock.  My all time favourite so far is the one in the Milton Keynes Mall (Buckinghamshire, England).

It is absolutely magical!

I always love how the  kids dance around below trying to catch the bubbles as they float down.  Anyway, onto wall clocks!

Diamantini & Domeniconi Oraora Cucu Clock available at occa-home.com

I love cuckoo clocks but who says they have to be the wooden black forest traditional kind?  This is available for £189.00 at Occa-home.com where they have a huge assortment of great wall clocks and many from Diamantini & Domeniconi!

Occa Maison Orsay Wall Clock

This is another available from Occa-home.  I love roman numerals!  Don’t ask me why, but I have been fascinated with roman numerals since I was a child and always prefer a clock to have them.  This is simply stunning! It’s available for £333

http://www.therange.co.uk

This is an amazing bargain at only £11.99 at The Range!  Great for a kitchen or dinette!

The Chris-Can-themum

This is available at www.etsy.com for £582.02.  This is made of saw blades and re-used materials.  But if you really want a bargain and something one-of-a-kind why not try making your own like the one below.  You can find directions on: http://retropolitanhip.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/i-mentioned-in-my-teacup-lamp-tutorial.html

Mirror Frame Upcycle

Today I designated craft day!  I had bought this mirror with a wide unfinished wooden frame from a charity shop for 25p and it was waiting for me for months to do something with it.

I had talked to my daughter Brianna who’s 13 about making it for her bedroom.  One of Brianna’s favourite colour is purple.  I decided to do a decoupage using tissue paper.

The colours are purple, violet and teal.  Next I tore it into pieces for the decoupage.

Brianna is crazy about dragons!  So I sourced some pictures on google images to also use in the decoupage.

I tore bits off of the pictures as well to add to the decoupage feel of it.  Then I used Mod Podge to paste it onto the frame.

I added several coats of the mod podge which gave it a nice glossy finish.  I then added some pretty pearlescent type faux stones and some jewellery pendants which I found at my local Hobby Craft.

And here is the finished result:

As mentioned in my other decoupage post, Brianna loves the story of Alice In Wonderland.  Can you spot the Cheshire Cat?

Glamorous Ceiling Lights

Time to take a break from some serious minded posts and return once more to feeding our hungry eyes with some design beauties!  These are the ceiling lights interior dreams are made of!

The first few images are from Wired:

monastery from Hudson Furniture

Chain mail pieces for a chandelier! Yes!

My favourite from Hudson Furniture.  Its huge!

This is the matching wall light but I couldn’t resist adding it here.  So gorgeous!

Shane Reilly San Francisco

So stunning!

This is just a shade but I think it is so classy. Its by Gung Lea.

By Charles Edwards.  Love!

Also by Charles Edwards.

By Jamb.  Of course!

 This is actually from the 1960’s.  It is all copper plated and its by Hans Agne Jakobsson. Isn’t it stunning?

Corbett Lighting Dolcetti Transitional Crystal Flush Mount Ceiling

By Design Lladro

This is made of 300 porcelain fairies!  I didn’t even know Lladro did interiors!

I had the pleasure of seeing some of these in person.  They are by a company called Slamp and they are so beautiful!

I love the design possibilities for this! This can be found on Etsy and it is hand made.

Believe it or not, this is made from Velcro!

This was made using vintage glass fishing floats and it is by Dogfork.

And finally for all you up-cyclist there, this pearl lamp shade is hand made.  Instructions can be found on http://goodideasforyou.com/ideas-a-inspirations/light-up-your-life/ceiling-lights.html

The World of Upcycling

What do you think when you hear the word up-cycling? A coat of new paint?  Some new knobs? Added ribbon?  For some of us, that is as far as we get.  For others….well let’s say they have the gift of thinking outside the box.

 

 

An old vase and some odds and ends and you have a table.

 

I really  have to try this one.  Take a wire planter–the kind that is used in hanging baskets and remove the mulchy bit and affix atop of a candlestick and voila! it’s a fruit bowl!

 

Don’t you love this?  Take an old entertainment centre and transform it into a child’s play kitchen!

 

 

It’s always time for tea with this saucer and teacup clock!

This Christmas wreath is made from old sweaters!

Old matchbox cars!!

 

 

Up-cycled silverware flowers!

 

 

This was made using two litre soda bottles!

So was this!  The bottles were sandblasted to change it from transparent to white!

My Multi-Frame Picture Project

Being an Interior Design student means learning about so many beautiful designer furnishings.  It can be so exciting drooling over the latest design trends.  It can be so inspiring as you dream and plan what you will implement in your own home. However, being an Interior Design student and unemployed can also be frustrating as it isn’t possible to buy designer trends.  Now add a large family (10 children between my husband and me) and having a mortgage and  one daughter getting married next year and another one going to university in a year etc etc.  BUT I have always been used to finding ways of doing things frugally.  Never cheap mind you.  I don’t believe in cheap!  I believe in healthy, nutritious meals and furnishings bought at a bargain.  I believe in up-cycling and using any method I can find to cut cost. So although I buy magazines which showcase interior designs for the rich and wealthy, I have recently also started buying magazines which give creative interior designs for those more budget conscious.  So when I spotted this multi-frame aperture in an ad from The Range at only £10, I knew I had to have it.  The frame is sort of a pewter effect, Victorian design which came with those little picture inserts so you could see what it would look like with your photos in it.  This came with black and white pictures of people who looked like they were from Victorian times.  I decided to use pictures of my family that had that same sort of feel to it.  Luckily I had some pictures of my children when they were younger that had a bit of a Victorian feel about them.   At first I thought of using sepia or black and white effect pictures.  The trouble was I didn’t have a pc program that did this kind of effect.  Then I discovered photobucket. I had heard about it but didn’t know what you could do on it.  Ooooohhhhh, I am now a photobucket addict!  It is great and its free and you can create all kinds of special effects and store it on the website.  After playing around with it, I decided to go for an effect that was more of a washed out look rather than total sepia or black and white.  It still gave an old-fashioned feel to it, but at least I can see the colour of my daughters’ red hair.

Now, here is another great part to this story.  When I first ordered the frame, it arrived broken in four places.  I phoned The Range and they sent a new one in a much bigger box with more padding which was great customer service.  They also told me I could dispose of the broken one as they didn’t feel it worth their expense to collect it.  My immediate thought was, SUPERGLUE!  My second thought was what was I going to do with two identical frames of this type?  Then I had the idea that of using it in my bedroom and spray-painting it in brass to match my dresser handles.  Once it was spray painted,  knew I had to use a different photobucket special effect to go with this strong colour.  This is where I really had fun, using special effects that gave the pictures intensity and vibrancy.  I think it looks great!

See how the strong colours really make the pictures pop? It helps the now brass almost gold frame not look too garish.

So £10 and a £7.99 can of spray paint gave me two multiframes and a chance to display more pictures of my gorgeous children!

Up-cycling a Vase

I decided I wanted to start adding faux flowers in my living room which I am currently updating.  Abigail Ahern sells some beautiful ones in her shop in London but as money is tight, I decided I would have to wait before I can afford it.  Then I came across this vase of faux red roses in TK Maxx for only £16.99.  What a bargain!  The only problem was the flowers were glued in a clear glass vase which meant you could see the stems inside it and I can’t remove them without the risk of some damage.

So I went to the local B & Q and got some stone effect spray paint.

I then took a plastic bag and covered the flowers to protect it from the paint and then spray painted the vase.

It took a few coats which you only have to wait minutes in-between.  Then it takes 24 hours to dry hard.  Now it looks like this.

My Fire Surround Up-cycle Project

When we moved into our house it was suppose to be temporary.  We moved to quickly get my daughter into the high school of her choice and we thought we were getting a good deal.  We didn’t decorate because we planned on selling again in  1-3 years.  However, we bought the house just before the recession hit.  Needless to say, we haven’t been able to sell for the price we bought it for and have been now living here for six years.  I finally started to give in and have started to decorate.  This summer the big project has been our living room.  New paint, new carpet and due to a delay that was beyond our control in getting the carpet in, I decided to finally re-finish the fire surround.  It has been on my mind for years and after some discussion with darling husband about whether to go paint, lime finish or varnish, we decided to varnish in dark walnut to more or less match the furniture we have.

So here is the before picture; this out-dated pine:

And here is the after picture after some sweat, elbow grease and nearly some tears:

Still more projects ahead…but first a little rest.