Done-Up Dining

BEFORE

These chairs we bought last year at charity shop for £60 (including table). Fabric remnants were bought at charity shop in Wolverhampton for 99p each. You can see from the 'before' photo that the chairs had water marks on them from where I had attempted to clean them as they were quite grubby! My hand ached for days after this project from removing dozens of industrial staples from hardwood and hammering in hundreds of tacks! Worth it though.

More Drawers

BEFORE

I have been playing with wallpaper samples again! This time it's a chest of drawers in the bedroom. Originally pine, I painted them off-white about two years ago. Today I decorated the fronts with a free sample of wallpaper.

A Tale Of Four Fireplaces

The original fireplace

Exposing the brickwork

Old fire surround with opened up fire

New fire surround

Constructing the Box

The Final Fireplace, with repainted surround.

We've made a few changes with the fireplace this year. Back in Feb we decided to open it up, and expose the brickwork. It wasn't long though before I had found a really nice fire surround in the charity furniture place for only £10. This was slightly bigger than the original, so we had to expose a little more brickwork. But I wasn't happy with the colour of the new surround,  so having lived with it for a bit, I decided to repaint it. We also didn't like the open fireplace as we were getting a lot of dust etc down the chimney. So we made a box to slide in the hole, from materials we had in the shed, and filled it with logs from a tree that we had pruned back in the garden. Next we added a frame around the front of the box and slotted it into the space. Now we love it!

DVD Cabinet Makeover

I had been looking for a way to keep DVDs out of sight in the living room, when I happened upon this unit in my favourite charity furniture warehouse for £12. It was a very plain dark brown colour, so I used some previously acquired skills (from my days living on a narrowboat) to liven it up a bit. I used acrylic paints and a coat or two of satin finish varnish. This now as the Gypsy Caravan from my earlier post sitting on top, which goes really well.

Showing Off My Drawers (A Before and After)

I got these drawers is my favourite Charity Furniture Warehouse last year. In August I picked up an assortment of quirky knobs, and in September I decided to cover the drawers with wallpaper samples, stuck on with strong PVA glue. The top had already had to be trimmed a little as the dog had had a bit of a chew on it, so I covered that in an amazing leatherette wallpaper, which I have now topped with a piece of glass re-purposed from an old picture frame (it happened to be a pretty perfect fit). The sofa in the top photo also came from the same store a year or two ago.

Dream Closet

So...the original plan was to construct a fitted wardrobe in the alcove in the bedroom. Until we spotted this in the local house clearance shop. It cost less than the materials for our own project would have done too. Though it was too wide for the alcove, it fits perfectly against the window wall. We had some fun trying to get it up the stairs, so ended up dismantling it on the driveway in the rain, but now its rebuilt and I love it so much. I added some battery operated fairy lights which are set in white silk flowers to the top. It's made such a difference to the room, and now I have space for more charity shop clothing finds!

Nice Knobs

Oooo errr missus! Got these yesterday from a local charity furniture warehouse. At £2.50 each they cost a little more than I hoped, but they have livened up this pine chest of drawers in our bedroom. Incidentally, these drawers are the only furniture in the bedroom, that remain, as yet, unpainted. I sanded them back some time ago and waxed them, but didn't paint them as I wanted to keep the contrast with the antique white lace runner I have on the top. Might revisit these drawers one day and perhaps paint them a pale muted green, as they do look a little dark in the room.