diy holiday project: faux fur footstool

Apparently, faux fur (foot)stools are in! They seems to be everywhere, in fancy interior design magazines and in the shops.
First things first. This week we've got a very, very ugly, brown faux leather footstool. It was a family hand-down 'because-you-like-old-stuff'... Yeah.We do. We like nice, old stuff, not junk...
This ugly thing had a lid and a worn out plastic 'storage' inside. Yikes!
The only thing we liked about it were the 60's looking legs. So I thought, okay, why not remove the legs and use them for another, fancier footstool?
Until I discovered the faux fur stool-hype! Below left is one of the many inspirational pics I came across in a magazine:

I've bought a half a meters piece of very light beige, long haired faux fur for 5 euro's, and used a left-over piece of an old sheet. After just a few hours of sewing I've got my fancy faux fur stool! 


As a first layer I used the old sheet to make a fitted cover as the base for the faux fur layer. I did this completely free-hand. Simply cut a circle for the top, attached a rectangular piece for around and made a casing with elastics at the bottom. This part was whipped up very quickly!


Then came the faux fur part, which is mostly handsewing. Now this took me quite a few hours to finish!
Cutting long faux fur can be really messy, so you should use pointy scissors and stay as close to the surface as possible, to avoid cutting across the long hairs.


Of course, I came fur short for the top layer, so had to put a few pieces together. Great thing about the long haired fur is that if you sew carefully you can cover the seams easily:

Finally, I sewed the top circle to the seeth layer by hand. Again, there is almost no seaming visible, which guarantees the 'expensive' look instead of a cheap knock-off!

vintage items in our house

If you follow my blog you know we moved recently to our new home. We have a load of old stuff and didn't really bought new things for the new house. I really don't understand why people need to buy new furniture for their new home. I like things we already have and just change one piece every now and then. It is a mix of new and vintage, design and even IKEA.
I thought it would be fun to show our vintage things, some inherited, some bought in second hand shops.

Old pieces in the living room: my grand-grandma's 30's sewing machine and their wedding picture from 1921, my grandma's old bakelite phone, the found sewing box with the sliding lid, the 2nd hand 50's table, another sewing cabinet which my bf inherited, a huge copper washing bin and an old handmade child's sledge:


a vintage, handmade (both handwoven and crocheted) tablecloth from Transylvania:


In the kitchen we have mostly my family pieces, like the old scale, the lamp shade and the bowl. The step is second hand and the old biscuit boxes are from my bf's grandma:

New piece of vintage furniture

Are you tired of my retro (MCM-inspired) interior pics yet? Yesterday we've got another hand-own piece of furniture, a sewing machine cabinet. There is no sewing machine inside, but plenty of room behind the sliding door and in the drawers. It has nice tapered legs and it isn't too big for the room. There is a little damage on top, for now I've put my grandparent's 1960's telephone on it to cover that patch up. In case you wonder why aren't any pictures of the other side of the room, there are still unpacked boxes around the dining table...

another corner finished

Looks like this piece of furniture was made for here!
It belonged to my BF's grandmother, who passed recently. Unfortunately no idea how old this little cabinet is or where it came from. The top and the back is marble. I might sand it one day, to freshen up the darkened color of the wood.

New vintage find for our home

A fun little folding kitchen step stool from the 50's!
You can fold in the bottom steps when you sit on it. While it wasn't a real bargain it is in a great vintage condition. The red top cover made of artificial leather has just a few minor scratches. Even the original marking 'Brabantia' is there on the bottom of the lower step.

   

Vintage sewing box found on the street

Look what I've got!
Yesterday, around midnight I was biking home with my BF from a relaxing park-concert. (Basically, you take your own food, drink and a cloth, listen to the music and chat with friends...)
He spotted this sewing box on the street in a pile of junk, the 50's shaped legs drawing his attention. We were close to our new house so the box travelled with us on the steering wheel of his bike.
The picture is not the best, made with artificial light and a cellphone at night, but you get the idea. The box had two of the original inserts and was full with little spoons of thread, zippers and other stuff in cigar boxes.
My BF is going to fix the closure which should 'glide' from one side to another and then I can put my own sewing stuff in it!

Heritage

Recently I've spent a short week in Hungary. As I'm always looking for stuff for our new house I spotted a few 'new' old things at my grandma's house. The old scale with a coupe of the original iron weights above was my great-grandmother's, just like the old wedding picture and the 30's Singer I've already got. the little oily was made by my grandma and the lamp shade was a gift to her from my mum about 50 years ago.

New vintage coffee table

Another pretty 50's stuff for the new 50's house! Our current coffee table, a big wooden box actually won't fit in our new, smaller living room. We've been hunting for months to find a smaller,more delicate looking table instead. Now here it is. A second hand coffee table made out of teak wood, somehow, this seemed to be quite popular in 50's Europe. Vintage stuff is made so well, the quality remained through the ages. The legs are set in with metal rings which look really pretty and the glass top has rounded corners. These are some of the details you won't find on contemporary furniture. Unfortunately, vintage furniture from the 50's seem to be more expensive than a couple of years ago. Still, the prices are similar to prices of furniture from big warehouses like IKEA. When buying vintage furniture you know you can sell the pieces for the same price, even after a few years, and you have mostly original pieces of furniture.
To see our other 50's finds click on the label 'vintage' in the side bar.





Current coffe table:

House

 

My 'new' second hand 50's bedside tables!

Kitchen dreams

A dream kitchen! This is the first kitchen designed with modular units, by the Dutch designer Piet Zwart. It's been produced from 1937 till 1960. One of the biggest kitchen-fabricants of the Netherlands still has it in it's collection. It reminds me so much of the kitchen of my grandma, with the little glass boxes underneath the cabinets! Most of the elderly people hate it, because it used to be everywhere, it was the basic project-kitchen of the country.
Really basic, but oh so charming! Would fit perfectly in our 1950's house. Love the tiles in the pics too...



 

Project in-between

For the new house we've bought a 50's Dutch design table and separate 4 50's Dutch chairs. The furniture has elegant lines, the table can be made bigger by pulling the sides and inserting an extra piece (hiding underneath) in the middle.
I knew that in the 50's Dutch furniture fabrics used mainly teak and palisander wood. Both are hardwood. Palisander has a dark reddish brown color and teak has a grey-brown color with a hint of red tones. Teak has a high oil content and is very durable. The chairs are also very comfortable.
I loved the shapes but didn't like the dark reddish brown fifties color. So I decided to sand away the dark varnish...

I used a rubber sanding block and it wasn't easy to get the deeper layers of varnish off! I'm halfway with the first chair and quite pleased with the results.

Once everything is ready I have to get some light colored, good quality upholstery fabric instead of the original green artificial leather to cover the seats. I'm looking forward to the sewing part of the job! The wood will be treated with oil or perhaps a thin layer of clear matte varnish.

To be continued!

 

 

  

UPDATE:
The color of the wood doesn't seemed even, and it took forever to get rid of the varnished layer, so I decided to stop with sanding the chairs and painted the chair back in the original color... One thing I'm going to do is to change the original artificial leather cushions into a lighter colored upholstery fabric.