Before & After: Transformed Tea Cart

It is the best feeling when you come across a great item at the flea market! I found this awesome mid-century tea cart at the 3rd Sunday Market in Bloomington, IL last month. The round shape and original lucite wheels are what I love most about this piece. The chipped black paint and rose etched glass...not so much. It needed some TLC and I was hoping after getting it spruced up that it would be a great addition to my back deck. 

BEFORE:

IN PROGRESS:

After sanding down the clumpy paint job that was on the cart. A HUGE thanks to my dad for his help with the not-so-fun paint stripping and sanding portion of this project! 

AFTER:

A fresh white paint job, a brand new piece of mirror for the bottom shelf and a brand new piece of textured glass for the top shelf...now we're in business! I think the bright white color shows off the circle shape so much better. 

I think it looks great on the deck! 

Will be the perfect place to serve drinks or an appetizer this summer!

Vintage Find: Yellow coasters

Fun vintage find....yellow patent leather coaster set! Cool, huh!?!? I found these at the Ravenswood Antique Mart in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of Chicago. This antique mart is a very fun place to browse, but most items were very much over my price range! I guess that is why I only came home with these coasters! ha! Seriously though, I would recommend taking a cruise around this store if you are looking for some high quality mid century items...everything in the store is in really great shape or has been restored. Quite a bit of furniture and tons of accessories and vintage jewerly. It is a real antique mart where different vendors have "booths" in the space...so the items are coming from several different sources. I have made two visits and both times would say that all vendors are displaying pristine things with a price tag to match!

The entire set was in really great shape with no tears or scrathes in the patent leather...and I thought the buckle was really fun too!

Ta Da! Transformed Credenza

You know when you have a vision...you can just picture something in your mind and that is how you want your room to look...that was me with my living room. I had a vision since I moved in of a very long, low credenza up against one wall. A piece with some open and some concealed storage. I was picturing some floating shelves hung above it on one side and a flat screen TV on a stand off to the other side. Needed something to replace my old IKEA 3-piece "entertainment center" pictured here...



I searched and searched some of my favorite catalogs and nothing really struck me...I also hunted on Craigslist for several months...and then the perfect piece was posted. It would need some work to transform it into what I wanted, but it was going to be good...I just knew it. I took my mom along with me to go look at the piece...she needed more convincing that this was really going to look good in my room...but I knew it had a lot of potential! Here is the credenza shortly after unloading it into my garage:



What I loved about it...clean lines, sits up off the ground a bit, clean fronts to the doors and drawers, and it is super long (about 90 inches!). Love! Now here is where the work came in...took off the doors on both ends and removed the drawers and shelves that were inside, sanded the entire piece thoroughly and then painted it black. Wow...the sanding was a tough job...it really took some elbow grease to get the varnish and stain sanded off. The rental of an orbital sander was a must! (About $20 for one day...well worth it!)

The finished product...my vision is now reality...



Of course right after bringing the credenza into the living room it was obvious that a new TV was in order too...went out to Sam's Club and bought one that afternoon! It is a much better fit than the old clunky TV, don't you think? The floating shelves come from Target for $9.99 each. Still working on the arrangement of the items on the shelves...more to come on that later...

Reupholstery!!

The good news...I found a pair of mid-century lounge chairs that I love at a great price! (Found the chairs at Furniture Lounge of course!)

The bad news...they were a mustard yellow color that just wasn't going to work!

Solution: Reupholstery!


BEFORE:




AFTER:

LOVE the way they turned out! I'm not going to lie...reupholstery is not cheap...but it can be a great way to customize a special piece!

I had my heart set on contrast piping and it just so happened that my mom had the perfect black fabric on hand for the piping...perfect! The two chairs sit by an iron and glass table, yellow footstool and striped lamp...a great place to read, enjoy a beverage or watch TV! I found the yellow and grey throw pillows at a wonderful Etsy shop called Idari...check out her pillows in such fun fabrics at a great price!

Vintage Find: Amazing mid-century artwork!

Let me introduce you to my new amazing vintage artwork! I recently purchased these these 3 pieces at Furniture Lounge in downtown Urbana, IL. I'm not sure about the background or history of these particular pieces, but for some reason I think they are from the 1960's. They are teardrop shaped wooden plaques painted with images of bottles...the turquoise blue on the plaques matches the walls in my dining room PERFECTLY! They were meant to be mine!

I have an awesome black & white photo of my grandparents' old diner in my dining room currently...the wooden plaques add some great color to the space and look amazing flanking the windows in that room! I also love how the natural wood border of the art pieces tie in with the hardwood floors and my kitchen cabinets...perfect!

Vintage Find: Haeger Potteries Lamp

A little trip yesterday afternoon to my favorite store, Furniture Lounge, and I now have some great new vintage pieces for my house! I scored two tables, a lamp and some artwork...all amazing mid-century vintage items.

Love, love, love this lamp! The base and shade were sold seperately and my mom put the two together for an awesome pair. The base is a vintage Haeger Potteries lamp made out of light yellow ceramic and black metal. The shape reminds me a bit of a lava lamp! The shade is made out of fiberglass and has abstract swirls of black and copper all over it with black plastic cord whipstiching on the top and bottom. Don't they look great together!?!




The lamp now sits on one of the new tables...a two-tiered black metal table with smoked glass on top of both tiers...lovely vignette!


Stay tuned for another post about the vintage artwork I scored...

Vintage Lamp Transformation!

This 1960's lamp is the coolest! My mom found it at a vintage store in downtown Champaign called Carrie's. It was in need of some updating though...the wiring needed re-done, I needed a lampshade and the brass elements didn't go with my decor either. The folks at Tepper Electric did the re-wiring and ordered the perfect tall, black shade for it. I then spray painted the brass parts silver to go with my room a bit more. Check out the transformation:

Paint prep:


After:





I absolutely LOVE the finished product! (Though I wonder if I would love it even more if the silver color was a bit darker...more like pewter?? Hmmm...) The yellow, blue and orange are the perfect colors and it adds a lot of vintage flair and drama to the room! See what fun it can be to update an old item to make it work for your space. Give it a try!