DIY - Seeing Design

Published October 14, 2008 by Anne Collins Howard

Refinishing Furniture Finds

I tend to fall in love with run-down objects. I look right past the chipping paint and wobbly frame and see (with rose-colored glasses) a decorating project. Last week I mentioned how we went on an antique furniture spree at the Old Country Store outside Rhinebeck, NY—and this weekend was the restoration aftermath. Mike and I attempted to refinish 13 pieces of furniture in two days. Crazy, but doable. We staked out the common backyard in our shared brownstone with a 20’x15′ tarp, cans of paint, stripper, thinner, saws, drills, tons of sandpaper and set to work. I wish I had all the finished pieces to show you, trust me, but they are still drying in a scattered heap behind our house.

Here is a bit of this work in progress and pieces that inspired a paint-covered weekend:

I adore this desk! I was told it is early Stickley but the clean lines and open sides (they’re bookshelves!) are what sold me. This piece was in pretty good condition, all we had to do to doctor it up was give it a sand down and a new coat of white.

The wood veneers were peeling from all sides of this buffet but I took one look at those legs, the original hardware, and the embossed detailing (see above) and I had to have it. If you sense a theme, I adore French flair in my furniture.

Mike is a fantastic photographer so knowing that photos will be big part of our wall decoration, we had to think of different ways to display them. We saw these 1940s windows and decided to turn them into 12-image picture frames. We bought two, painted them white, and have plans to hang one on each side of our living room-to-kitchen archway.

The lattice work makes this regal piece light and chic. It will go nicely in our living and it only needs a few paint touch-ups.

This mirror originally had a decorative wood overlay along the top but when we found it, only a chunk remained. So we pried off what was left, sanded the mirror frame down and painted it a rich red to match the flowers in our guest bedroom wallpaper.

This was the state of my backyard last night as we waited for the paint to dry. Hopefully in a few blogs all the drawers will be back in place and the furniture will be adorning my apartment with as few scuffs as possible.

Projects

decorating DIY furniture

Published October 1, 2008 by Anne Collins Howard

Our Fireplace Excavation

In previous blogs about my empty apartment-makeover, you’ve seen the pretty fireplace but until now, I’ve been hiding its ugly twin from you. It’s a cookie-cutter cherry marble fireplace that has been boarded over with faux marble, and it’s been looming in our master bedroom since the former homeowner left. We knew it was probably covered for a reason, but we had to find out for ourselves. When our handyman Vince was over fixing up a few things, we asked him to add, “dismantling the fireplace” to the list. Vince pried the face off, and he phoned us immediately, “Your only choice is to cover this thing back up.” It turns out that our former chimney had imploded about fifty years back and its rubble and soot was still preserved behind this faux marble. It was the dirtiest, most daunting sight I’d ever seen. I am not going to lie. I was with Vince, but my man Mike was determined to excavate. I’ll thank him now, but at the time I thought he was crazy—mainly because I was his main source of labor. The project at hand consisted of removing hundreds of pounds of debris, carrying it down three flights of stairs, chipping away the plaster fireplace surround, exposing the brick behind it, and sanding down the concrete remains—not exactly items on my home design résumé. Though skeptical, I too saw glimmers of an exposed brick fireplace filled with candles at the foot of our bed, and before you knew it, I was at Home Depot buying buckets and respiratory masks.

Above, the picture of the fireplace as the previous homeowner had it. Below, are pictures of the project in its many phases throughout the excavation.

fireplace marble cover — The faux marble once we yanked the mantel off.

brick fireplace excavation — What was hiding behind the faux marble (broken pottery and doll head, not shown here). You can see the soot cloud forming, and it only got denser.

fireplace finishing — By tapping a screwdriver in with a hammer, we could chip away the plaster covering the bricks. Yes, I am sporting my former volleyball kneepads.

fireplace peelback — Once we loosened up the plaster, we could pull it off in sheets.

Removing the fallen rubble was exhausting but easy compared to dislodging the bricks at the top of the chimney. Mike and our brave friend, Scott, knocked the remains down with the longest pole we had handy: a golf ball retriever. Only Mike got pelted with a falling brick (his arm is slightly bruised, but he says it was worth it).

This is our fireplace, free of the imploded chimney, and me trying to clean up the concrete-speckled bricks. We did this by attaching a wire wheel to the end of a drill. A wire wheel, if you don’t know (because I didn’t), looks like the roughest Brillo pad ever created, and when it spins at top speed, it can pulverize concrete. We went over each brick until the bricks were smooth and red again.

After eight hours of hauling brick and breathing soot, we have a second “pretty” fireplace. Though we have plans to add a proper surround, we are going to revel in its new “clean and clear” look for a while.

Projects

bedroom DIY home renovations

Published July 15, 2008 by Anne Collins Howard

How to Decorate with Orange Walls?

AntoniaHuttDiningRoom The juicy orange walls of this Antonia Hutt dining room have been on my mind ever since we posted it in Met Home’s story Mad about Saffron. And if a paint can stick in my mind that long, I think I need to buy it by the gallon (I have an email into the designer for the exact paint number; I’ll keep you posted).

Warm hues are said to cater to our social side and in a kitchen or dining room, stimulate appetite and conversation. I am not 100% sure this is true but with an orange this warm, this inviting–it just might be. So I think I am going to give it a whirl on our new kitchen walls. I love it–and I better because a color this strong will undoubtedly resonate throughout the surrounding rooms.

So that brings us to the next question: If our saffron kitchen opens up directly into our living room, do I carry the color through or give the other walls breathing space?

I think the living rooms palette has to at least reference the adjacent kitchen with complimentary colors. This space below by Jonathan Adler may just be the palette I am going for–browns, greens, creams, and few touches of orange in a rug or pillow to connect the space.

But I am also batting around the idea of painting the back wall of the living room a few shades softer, in a color like this Martin Senour Zinnia Orange. It would create a continuous flow between rooms and on just one wall, the color is a surprise rather than an expected matchy-matchy paint job.