This and that

I just put this buffet/side board cabinet in at Eastown Antiques. It is the first cabinet I have done like this and it is made of repurposed furniture and architectural items. The back is two doors joined together and the front is half of an old kitchen table.

                                                                           This little robin's egg blue cabinet was a built-in bookcase that I rebuilt as a free standing cabinet. It is also at Eastown antique mall. Our collection of repurposed furniture is drawing lots of attention for which we are grateful. So it is only encouraging me to do more.

We have also had much discussion about our business in the last few weeks. After much hand wringing we have decided to not do Kane this weekend and we we most likely not doing Grayslake next weekend. We have having much success here in our home area of west Michigan and feel that the addition cost of doing the shows in Chicago has not been off set by additional revenue. So like all good busy people we must make changes that have a greater benefit for us. The hard part of this is that we will miss the many good people we have meet at these show. The many dealers and clients will be greatly missed. We can not say enough good about Rubarb Reign and all the help Joe and Sandy have been in doing these shows and introducing us to the right people.

We will have future anouncements about some new shows we will be doing and some expanding in antique mall spaces as we can break the news.

Spring Birds

Dan cut these cute little metal birds our of salvaged old tin roofing, we loved the original chippy white paint! Then I got a hold of them and created a pattern over the white with my stamps using 3 colors, tied them up with poshy ribbon and they are on their way to the antique mall this afternoon . $8.00 each, limited supply!

HAPPY SPRING!

The Lure of the Porch

The sun is shining, the snow is gone, the tulips are showing the green of their leaves and we saw our first robin 2 weeks ago so I am dreaming of outdoor living on our new old porch. We moved to this amazing 1880's Queen Ann style home last September. This house has a large front porch just like the one I have always dreamed of and I can't wait to use it. So I have been perusing all of my inspirational porch and cottage books for my "favorite things".
Right now I am selecting paint colors  and fabrics for the furniture and cushions. Stay tuned for the final plan and photos.
Happy Spring!!!!!!!

Weekend thoughts and news

It has been a busy week. CJ finished up on the show house on Monday. I have been very busy in my shop this week. I did find time to go to an auction and CJ had time to go to an estate sale. Two things I realized about the antique business this week, one was how much time we spend hauling things and setting things up, the other is how much patience we have to have when we shop for items. Some estate sales and auctions you find things very quickly and sometime all at once. But, most of the time you patiently watch or wait often hours for a few minutes of good buying.

My favorite auction find of the week was this wonderful vintage dress form. She has a very matronly shape and we have already begun to refer affectionately as Grandma.

The three above re-purposed pieces of furniture were completed for a client this week and they are sold and have been delivered. They were great fun to make. The yellow bench is made out of a single bed. The blue buffet was made out of numerous vintage cabinet parts and pieces and the white hall tree was made from parts of a couple of old doors. 

This week promises to be another busy week. So many creative things to do and so little time.

Recent Repurposed Furniture Projects and Other Mid-Week News

This wonderful re-purposed cabinet sold this week at Bluedoor. It was a combination of salvaged kitchen drawers, an old cabinet that may wife has owned for years, and some bead board which I always try to have on hand in my shop. I have been inspired by vintage storage/utility cabinets and so I have been putting together the many parts and pieces laying around my shop with that theme in mind. Based on how quickly this piece sold I think I will will plan on doing a few more with a similar styling.

The next project I worked on a week ago involved turning old window sash into table top greenhouses. I was inspired by a table top green house that Diana Passi had at the last Grayslake show. The roof and sides I managed to make from two window sash. The two ends I left open so one could easily install or remove plants. The roof finals were cut from a couple of old porch spindles. This charming green house can be seen at Bluedoor. I had great fun making this and depending on how well received it is I will try to make a few more now that late winter, early spring is making those of us that garden start to think of the smell of dirt and all things newly green.

This garden bench was just finished this week and was just put in at our mall space at Bluedoor. CJ found two single beds at an estate sale a month ago and we both fell in love with the idea of turning them into benches. As you can see from the picture the end result is great fun. The second one is still in my shop being painted yellow for a client and so is already sold.

This last piece is another cabinet just made for one of CJ's projects(she will tell you more about this later). It is a cupboard combined with drawers and door left from another cabinet, and the back was salvaged from pine boards I removed from an old hardware store dating to the early 1900's. It is another one of the cabinets I am building that's based on a vintage utilitarian/storage cabinet theme.

We have been working hard on the show house this week. We have also sold three good size pieces of furniture and have had a client place an order for three more of my re-purposed pieces of furniture. So we have decided to not do Grayslake this week. This just isn't enough time for us to do the show house, work on furniture projects here and do a show. So something has to give and unfortunately it will be Grayslake. We will miss seeing our many regular clients and the family of fellow dealers that we have become close to.

Work In Progress

I get very excited as all of the pieces start coming together for a project. So here are a few photos of some of the pieces for the Grand Rapids Symphony Designer Showhouse that I am working on.

I have keep a photo in my idea file of a pillow similar to this.  The great stripe fabric banding is vintage French ticking, the red print is a cotton that I dyed with coffee to give it a softer patina, the edging is a wonderful old crisp linen , filled with down.

I have always loved this cotton/linen sunflower damask fabric from Brunschwig and Fils and I have been saving this dramatic vintage hand crocheted edging, I guess just for this project! It is also filled with down and buttoned with vintage pear buttons.

This fantastic French Louis XVI twin bed was given to us by a dear friend and world traveler. I will be using it against the wall like a day bed, filled with the above pillows.

A sneak peak at some of the custom bedding, more of that vintage French ticking!

I love these old suitcases!

So just a tease  (smile) more later - wait till you see what Dan's made!