Tag: repurposed furniture

My Vintage Life

So it’s a dark and rainy night here tonight. I “feel” like I should be doing something “productive” instead I’m plopped on my sofa in oversized clothes drinking copious amounts of coffee.

I may or may not sleep tonight.

I decided I could be productive and write, but don’t feel motivated enough to have to think to hard writing on my usual health/fitness/lifestyle/nutrition mantra.

Yeah I do try and be on my A game when I deliver all that stuff…

Soooo…since I was goaded recently by a fellow blogger ( *cough * he shall remain nameless) that I hadn’t written a post recently on my other life….that of furniture flipping…vintage and antique kinds of goodies that is.. I decided tonight was the night.

That comes easy enough to chat with you over coffee Haha

My vintage life

You can find where it all started in my post on it here…. https://sassyfitnesschick.com/2018/07/25/the-journey-of-opening-a-vintage-business/

I often get asked “how long ” I’ve been doing it.

Me: I literally just stumbled into it last year. Like seriously. I did a piece or two. It was fun. The visions came without effort. People liked it and started buying it and well…here I am

I always joked my mom had all the artistic talent. And she did. She could paint all kinds of things and it actually looked like…rose’s or scenery, tiny details or whatever…

Beautiful.

She tried hard to “teach” me. Sigh…. my art work was less than stellar.

Along the way I learned my gifts were more “active” and just decided I had no creativity.

So of course it came as a surprise to me when the furniture thing came so effortlessly to me. I’ve been asked by lots of people if I could teach them how to do it.

Yeah, I could do that. But what I can’t teach is the stuff that’s in my head. The way I get almost immediate visions for pieces. The way I can see the end result already in my head.

I can’t teach you that.

It’s at that point I realized it wasn’t that I didn’t have my mothers artistic abilities, they were just…. different….and that was ok.

Not only ok, it was cool. Cool to do something that took a piece from ugly and hopeless to updated, beautiful and useful again.

I cannot begin to say how satisfying it makes my “work”.

I like old things and I cannot lie…

My son asked me years ago before I was even into this why I liked “old junk”. I have appreciated, for a long time, older things. It’s just gotten stronger as I’ve aged. Perhaps I just have a different appreciation for it.

They have a life and story to them that modern day items do not have. There is a “feel” to them. They have somehow traveled through time, families, traded hands numerous times and somehow I get entrusted with it.

The pieces bare wear marks, scratches, missing parts etc of the life they’ve lived. I never try and make an old piece look “perfect”. It has lived life and should still have reflections of it.

I’ll show you some projects..…

I’ve done quite a few things now. I have literally a barn of cool things waiting for me….some personal…others to sell..

I picked up this 1930s radio cabinet last month for 25.00. I knew I was keeping it. I’ve repurposed it to use in my kitchen to hold linens and baking items

It’s pretty beat up from age. The top opens where the radio used to sit. We are putting a solid piece in so I can store linens. The details make me wanna weep they are so gorgeous.

Ok you wanna see it now?

The back isn’t finished yet…but you can see all the pretty parts. I hand sanded the paint back off all the details so they’d pop. I left the doors original for some contrast and because I always try and leave some of its former life if I can. This makes such a pretty piece in my kitchen now.

How about this old button box? It was so dark and dreary…I love how sweet it looks now!

That sold almost as soon as I posted it.

I found this awful, sad and crusty table at a thrift store but I could see its potential…

Look at how it transformed though!

How sweet is it now??

But then I found a vintage suitcase. Hubby asked what I was going to do with it. The corner was broken and crushed.

Me…with confidence…I’m gonna fix it up! Hahaha ( have I mentioned how much I love a good challenge?)

Let the repair work begin!

I dragged in some old weights to plop in corners while gluing damaged area….

Then the base coat after repairs.. can you tell which corner was broken down? you ready to see the end results?

Of course you are 😉

Not bad for a broken down suitcase right? I was soooo thrilled with how it came out.

Then I bought this old, brown antique table. Solid wood and heavy with gorgeous details, I couldn’t pass it up.

And it’s much brighter after pics …

Another piece that sold almost immediately:)

Ok I’ll show you one more…..

I got this cute vanity that was someone else’s better idea project they abandoned

And it’s transformed look….

I found the little bench a few weeks later and it was perfect for it.

I had been itching to do something in pink and black and this was the perfect set to work it out on. I had scored the black and white paper at the thrift store and wanted to use that too. It all came together so well.

It was all meant to be together ha

Do you love all things vintage?

Ok I’ll shamelessly plug my business page and you can follow all of my furniture flipping shenanigans there if you like.

It’s a page devoted to sharing with others my transforming work, selling some of it, and educating when I can on various pieces.

I do occasional posts here on it ( often in my Monday Musings posts) but my business page is all things vintage fun. Mostly furniture but I get other items as well. Currently bread boxes are the cats meow. They sell as soon as I finish them. Hubby was teasing me one week ’cause I had actually managed to get my hands on a few and I had one in my shop.

“you have four bread boxes.”

Me: Yep.

A week later they were all gone. 🙂

Ok so here is the page:

Find it…www.facebook.com/shadesofyesterday

If this wasn’t enough vintage/furniture flipping reading find a couple other posts here..

https://sassyfitnesschick.com/2018/05/22/the-art-of-flipping-furniture/

https://sassyfitnesschick.com/2018/05/23/steps-to-transforming-vintage-furniture/

I hope you enjoyed seeing some of my trash to treasures items!

Tell me…do you like old stuff? Are you a vintage lover or are you a more modern person?

Monday Musings

Hello world! and hello my faithful followers. Yeah, I’ve been absent for a bit… I’d say I’ve been lazy but that’s definitely not the case. Life is busy and besides the usual life stuff I’ve been busy working on projects for my vintage shop… and burning a lot of midnight oil working on projects.

Find my post on my journey here…. https://sassyfitnesschick.com/2018/07/25/the-journey-of-opening-a-vintage-business/

It’s crazy I do some of my best work late. I guess I like it ’cause it’s usually quiet, everyone is in bed, no one wants anything from me and I can happily focus on what I’m doing.

It’s really a very relaxing thing for me to work on my pieces. There is something tremendously satisfying watching something old, ugly, tired and often discarded as useless come to a new life again.

I wrote a post on that here…. https://sassyfitnesschick.com/2018/05/22/the-art-of-flipping-furniture/

https://sassyfitnesschick.com/2018/05/23/steps-to-transforming-vintage-furniture/

It takes me on adventures dragging it home….

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Of course, once I hit the pillow, my mind is still wandering in a million places and often the creative part refuses to shut down.

For instance, I just finished this little piece last night.  I had it in my shop hanging out for awhile in “as is” shape. Meaning, it’s original finish.

It looked like this….

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Kinda boring and dated. It had no back… a hazard of old pieces. Things go missing over time

But look now at it… I’m so in love with how it came out.

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Fresh white, some distressing, a new back with some cute Paris themed fabric and it’s not so dated anymore.
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And because I’m a girl….details.

Ok I’m gonna show you one more thing I scored this week. An amazing, beautiful, yet sad and needy piece that I can hardly wait to get my paws working on.

It was actually in a listing for two antique chairs I wanted. The lady offered me a generous and low price for chairs and basically said if I’d take chairs for that price I could have the desk for 10.00.

Yeah 10.00.

I’ll let you take a look at it….

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I know you’re wondering why I dragged it home, aren’t you? I love the challenge that awaits me! The opportunity to breath life into this piece. So here’s the deal… I never look a gift horse in the mouth. I’ve been messing with this furniture craziness for a year now. I have an eye for “the good stuff”. I could hardly wait to get this home, examine it really close, take inventory of what needed done and then do some research on it to see what I could find on it.

I knew the desk was really old just based on the construction and the wood. The wood is rough cut and more fitted and glued together in many places than nailed. The “mirror” is no longer that, but mostly glass that’s tarnished and long gone. Someone along the way painted it white. It’s original finish would’ve been stained oak.

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A peak inside… and yeah.. it has no back. Like… what the heck is up with things losing their backs??
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Once again… look at those details…

So I did some research and it turns out this piece was produced by the Larkin Soap company and dates somewhere late 1800’s.

Ironically, Larkin’s main production was soap and toiletries. The furniture was a “give away” for purchasing various products. They offered chairs, lamps, tables and the popular secretary styled desk. The furniture was massed produced at the time of rather ordinary type woods.

This is the Readers Digest version. I found the whole history to be rather interesting. Larkin was quite the savvy business man of his time and had an extremely lucrative business.

And here I am…. over 125 years later… entrusted with the restoration of this amazing and cute piece.

Of course I have a long check list lined out of what to do haha

I’ve also scored lots of other cool things, with which I won’t bother you here. I’ll share in upcoming posts some updates.

Oh and I did finally start a business insta page so if you like antique and vintage furniture and other cool stuff, follow me there at vintage_1964 to see other shenanigans I’ve got going on.

I have been up to other things too….

The weather has been less than inviting and it just makes me wanna stay holed up in the morning drinking coffee…

But no…. I’m a good girl and try and get some kind of workout in. Right now, I consider myself in more of an “off season”. With the duathlon behind me, I haven’t been pushing as hard.

I’ve really been spending some time hitting the heavy stuff and focusing on that several times a week. I usually try and warm up with 15 mins or so of cardio…rowing or boxing… and then weights. I think I’m a weirdo but my body responds quickly to it so I guess there’s a bit of reward to keep at it. Not only that, it’s so empowering doing moves that previously may have felt “heavy” but now I do with ease.

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Gotta love a chilly morning that makes you work up a sweat

That organizing thing….

It is still on my list to keep cleaning out drawers, closets etc. I mentioned in a previous post the whole cultic Marie Kondo thing going on got me to trying her folding methods.

Don’t look for me to go all minimalist, but I do like a lot of her ideas.

I just need more time in my day for things! Anyone else out there?

I’m a list maker and if I can keep to doing that I am far more likely to accomplish an exact number of tasks in my day. otherwise, sometimes I can be all over the place ( my mind is a whirling place many times 😛 )

And finally….

The chilly wet weather has had me experimenting with some new soups and tasty food.

this soup was hearty and loaded with flavor. I doubled up and made a big pot of it. I used really big carrots and cut into large chunks for my non carrot loving people. I added warm French bread and it was perfect for a cold night.

https://www.littlebroken.com/2016/10/11/one-pot-chicken-stew/

And the chicken stew was amazing as well.

Try one of these out if you need a tasty cold weather meal.

Your turn, tell me what’s new with you. Tried any new recipes lately? Are you sticking with your exercise even if it’s cold where you live?  What keeps you motivated to stay with it?