A Chair to Keep and a Chair for Sale

Hi Friends! Jumping on to share a couple chair flips I had the opportunity to finish uplast week - the first being the beautiful mid-century chair from this post! I let my emotions get the best of me and ended up just recovering it in the end. I was really smitten with this piece and as Matt and I are in the middle of re-designing our living room to include a much larger work space, I wanted to hold onto this chair to use at the new desk area.

I used fabric from a large sofa pillow my sweet friend Shelly and her daughter Katie made a couple years ago. We no longer use the pillow on that sofa but the gray chambray fabric was still in great shape and a pretty compliment to the warm wood of the chair.

The centered inside-out seam was just a fun off-beat detail that doesn't take away from the classic look of the chair, you know, just for fun.

When I came across this next chair for less than $5 at the thrift store I scooped it up just to play around with. On a whim, I snagged a ball of yarn on sale at Michaels and this beautiful blue and white 'marbled' pattern fabric. Then the fun began!

After unscrewing the backrest from the chair, I used every inch of the yarn to wrap around the two wooden braces to create a new textured backrest - and it's SO comfortable!

A blue and white combo is classic but this pattern feels fresh and fun - I love finding ways to marry the two! There's always an opportunity to maintain the integrity of a piece while tweaking it just enough to make it modern. Finding that balance is my goal with just about every piece!

Wooden Accent Chair
$45
Contact me at chelsea@stylemutthome.com if interested in this cutie or a custom order like it!
(Imagine this beautiful backrest around an entire dining table!)
 

Thank you so much for stopping by today!

First Finds of the Year

Hi friends! Just popping by to share the fruit of a recent thrifting adventure I took with the kids near the end of their Christmas break! The best part was having the opportunity to get out and score some amazing pieces with my kids - we've been thrifting together for 5 years and I've missed doing this with them as they're all now in school! The low of the day was when a very kind old cashier at one thrift store pushed a box of styrofoam packing peanuts in front of my son, Mason, and told him they were edible and that he should eat one. He claimed that those packing peanuts were all he'd had for lunch that day and that they tasted exactly like popcorn. I don't know how old this box was but we're gracious people so we both took a teeny tiny bite, paid for our loot, found the twins and took an extra Airborne when we got home!

The same old man let each kid pick out a book to take home for free - well, 'free' after Mason and I took one for the team and partook of his styrofoam snack.

Let's move on to pretty pictures of less gross things! I decided to pull each piece in for some glamour 'before' shots. None of the pieces I found are in terrible shape and all the work needed is cosmetic. How about I share my plans for each one!

Petite Mid-Century Dresser

This cutie is on the small side at only 34" long and 32.25" high. The front drawers are marked up a bit so I would like to sand those down smooth and restain in a warm wood stain. I may paint his body white for a classic two tone finish that I think looks just smashing on mid-century pieces, and then sit the piece up on short tapered legs to add a few inches in height and get the body off the floor. However, I'm afraid that adding legs may look like he has 4 front legs, given that rounded detail on each side of the lower apron. Any thoughts on that?

Antique Wood and Wrought Iron Cabinet

This gem was a no-brainer when I saw it in the store despite the fact that I still have no complete plan for it! It's a sturdy piece with a hollow interior so it kind of just seemed like great blank slate. I'd like to disassemble the piece from the iron base, remove all the iron hardware and really clean up the wood. I'll sand the piece completely down and potentially leave the wood bare, (sealing it of course), with no stain, then reattach all the iron hardware and base. But that plan isn't set in stone...I may need to sleep on it a bit more.

Mid-Century Chair

Okay, don't laugh but sometime over the holidays I had a dream about a chair. Well, I don't know if the dream was actually about the chair, but there was a chair in my dream unlike anything I've ever seen and when I woke up I could still picture it so clearly! Since I'm not a skilled craftsman I know I have no business trying to build a chair from scratch, so I've been trying to find a chair in similar style to replicate my dream chair. This project will include recovering the seat in a deep blue chambray, (the easy part), and then removing the backrest and replacing it with tight vertical lengths of rope which will be padded half way up by 'tubes' of white or beige jersey fabric stuffed with batting and enclosed around each rope. Make sense? LOL! If only you knew how long it took me to compose that sentence - it's really hard to explain what I'm picturing! There's a very good chance this chair will look 10 times better now than after I try this idea, but it was a cheap find and mid-century or not...it was a cheap find. :) Bottom line, I have no emotional attachment to this chair I paid pocket change for so it's the perfect candidate to play around with.

Who am I kidding, I have a slight emotional attachment to this chair. Look at it! I may or may not be on the hunt for a different chair to try my idea on.

So that's what's in my garage right now and I'll be back to share each piece as it's finished! Thank you so much for stopping by today!

Industrial Pipe Bookshelf

Only 3 more days until Christmas!!!!  Admittedly I am equally counting down to spending time with family as I am to having a real break from my day job.  I haven't taken more than 2 days off for over a year so I am really really looking forward to a bit of an extended stay-cation.  As we count down to the holidays, I am also wrapping up some overdue flip debuts before getting ready to start rolling out new pieces in the new year.  

Remember my industrial sawhorse desk?  Well when the buyer came to pick it up last fall, it turns out she didn't need the 3-drawer hutch since she planned to float the desk in her office.  So she bought the desk, chair and lamp, and left the orphaned hutch drawers behind so I took the opportunity to play around with a new take on industrial-inspired storage.

Industrial Pipe Bookshelf

I re-re-used the drawers to make a 3-tiered bookshelf with loads of storage.

I drilled two holes through the front and back of each drawer and threaded a section of galvanized pipe through.  Each dovetailed drawer hangs level and secure by resting on pipe coupling at one end and a heavy-duty wall bracket at the other.

The staggered heights provide visual interest while allowing space for art or plants.

I tested the weight limits of the unit myself by literally loading up every flat surface with all of our hardcover books.

At the top, a small section of pipe also secures to the wall for more stability. 

And another flange at the base can be secured to the floor too.

The entire length of pipe disassembles easily into 4 sections for transporting. 

You could even swing out the middle drawer and mount the whole unit into a corner for even more versatility.

I would love to see this baby go to a cool loft or some other city space!  If you are interested in this piece or a custom order like it, please email cate@stylemutthome.com.

Industrial Pipe Bookshelf
Now Available for Sale
63"W x 7.5"D x 78"H
$395

As we gather together this Christmas, Chelsea and I pray that your holiday is filled to the brim with treasured family time.  We hope that the hustle and bustle will fade away and we'll all be able to truly savor the real reason for the season.  Merry Christmas to you all!