My weekend project at the moment is re-styling my room with a vintage theme, and im finding it awesome fun so im going to write a post about it.
It started when I went to a market and bought this cute retro stool with a fluffy seat and curly wire legs, and I brought it home and got really enthusiastic about how to make my room suit it, and i have spent the weeks since finding bits and bobs and scanning op-shops and contemplating layouts, and I've landed on a pretty cheap conversion plan.
(Soz to those of you who aren't interested in design cause im gonna rave for a while about how cool its going to be so you don't need to read this post.)
Basically, it is as follows:
1. Clean and tidy my room as it is and get rid of all the crap i don't use. This mightn't be the funnest bit but it's really satisfying to send load after load off to the op-shop, and I'm aiming to get rid of one whole bookshelf so I can replace it with nice vintage things.
2. Vintage-ify my boring bed and set of drawers. Perhaps not going to end up with perfectly ligit looking old furniture, but it's cheap and easy - pretty much just means painting them nice colours (maybe a little bit of sanding off for the aged effect) and replacing the drawer handles with old-style ones.
3. Move in my new (well, old) pieces of furniture!! These are my mum's desk, which I love, it's white (but with flaking paint and the wood and purple paint showing) and has cute curly-footed legs and two drawers; the stool; and the chest.
Let me tell you about the chest. I found it in the garage, covered in dust and chook-poo and full of spiders, but looking like it might be pretty cool underneath, so I thought, 'okay, ill scrub it up and have it as a decorative piece in my room'. turns out it wasn't quite that easy. I got it out today and started scrubbing off the loose green paint, finding lovely red wood underneath the dust. In the process however i discovered that the hinges and lock are rusted to buggary (one of them snapped off in my fingers) and the top and bottom are made of plywood which is warped and falling off.
So im going to have to take off the hinges, lock, metal straps, and corner pieces, and replace the top and bottom - i have salvaged some good wood scraps from our chuck-out pile for this. Since i won't be able to find any nice wood with the same lovely appearance, my plan is to upholster the lid and make it into a seat, as well as lining it with felt to put my craft things in and putting a tray. It's going to be quite a project, but it will be fun and I'll learn some woodworking and upholstering skills in the process! :D
So thats it about my wonderful room conversion, thank you muchly if you actually bothered to read it all, I'm just so excited about the whole thing that I wanted to rant to someone while the chest dries off. I'll go start sanding now, see ya!
Update: I took off all the corner pieces and hinges and the top and bottom, so it's well under way! :DD
Update 2: That was many months ago and it's still in pieces outside my room! :DD I have very thoroughly cleaned out my room though, and it's really spacious and pretty now and I got rid of the extra shelves so it looks cool. I'm not gonna do most of that plan though it's so long and complicated.
Update 3: i sanded it all, put it back together (including adding a bottom since the old one was rotted to shit) and it now sits under the stairs in my room to house all the soft toys i am too old to arrange on my bed but will never have the heart to give away. success story all round!
It started when I went to a market and bought this cute retro stool with a fluffy seat and curly wire legs, and I brought it home and got really enthusiastic about how to make my room suit it, and i have spent the weeks since finding bits and bobs and scanning op-shops and contemplating layouts, and I've landed on a pretty cheap conversion plan.
(Soz to those of you who aren't interested in design cause im gonna rave for a while about how cool its going to be so you don't need to read this post.)
Basically, it is as follows:
1. Clean and tidy my room as it is and get rid of all the crap i don't use. This mightn't be the funnest bit but it's really satisfying to send load after load off to the op-shop, and I'm aiming to get rid of one whole bookshelf so I can replace it with nice vintage things.
2. Vintage-ify my boring bed and set of drawers. Perhaps not going to end up with perfectly ligit looking old furniture, but it's cheap and easy - pretty much just means painting them nice colours (maybe a little bit of sanding off for the aged effect) and replacing the drawer handles with old-style ones.
3. Move in my new (well, old) pieces of furniture!! These are my mum's desk, which I love, it's white (but with flaking paint and the wood and purple paint showing) and has cute curly-footed legs and two drawers; the stool; and the chest.
Let me tell you about the chest. I found it in the garage, covered in dust and chook-poo and full of spiders, but looking like it might be pretty cool underneath, so I thought, 'okay, ill scrub it up and have it as a decorative piece in my room'. turns out it wasn't quite that easy. I got it out today and started scrubbing off the loose green paint, finding lovely red wood underneath the dust. In the process however i discovered that the hinges and lock are rusted to buggary (one of them snapped off in my fingers) and the top and bottom are made of plywood which is warped and falling off.
So im going to have to take off the hinges, lock, metal straps, and corner pieces, and replace the top and bottom - i have salvaged some good wood scraps from our chuck-out pile for this. Since i won't be able to find any nice wood with the same lovely appearance, my plan is to upholster the lid and make it into a seat, as well as lining it with felt to put my craft things in and putting a tray. It's going to be quite a project, but it will be fun and I'll learn some woodworking and upholstering skills in the process! :D
So thats it about my wonderful room conversion, thank you muchly if you actually bothered to read it all, I'm just so excited about the whole thing that I wanted to rant to someone while the chest dries off. I'll go start sanding now, see ya!
Update: I took off all the corner pieces and hinges and the top and bottom, so it's well under way! :DD
Update 2: That was many months ago and it's still in pieces outside my room! :DD I have very thoroughly cleaned out my room though, and it's really spacious and pretty now and I got rid of the extra shelves so it looks cool. I'm not gonna do most of that plan though it's so long and complicated.
Update 3: i sanded it all, put it back together (including adding a bottom since the old one was rotted to shit) and it now sits under the stairs in my room to house all the soft toys i am too old to arrange on my bed but will never have the heart to give away. success story all round!
No comments:
Post a Comment