Another thing that keeps us busy...

   Some day, Becca and I would like a little shop…

 "Ah, you've got a little shop. I like a little shop!"

 -The Doctor (episode: Smith and Jones)

 What would we sell in our little shop? Oh, lot's of things! Vintage furniture we fix up, fun pillows and wall hangings we make, stuff like that!

   When we first started thinking of the idea, there was even a storefront for sale on our very own main street in town. We told our dad about the little shop idea, and he (being very practical), told us before we started investing money in a building, we should start getting an inventory and building a costumer base. Well, I was a little disappointed that we couldn't have a shop right away, but I was very thankful for Dad's logical advice.

  So, we are working on inventory and exploring outlets to sell like craft shows, and maybe asking other local shops if they would take some of our pieces as consignment.

 But we are still getting ahead of ourselves. Finding cute, retro or antique furniture pieces at good prices is hard! But when we do find something, it is so fun to look at it, and figure out how to redesign it.  So far, we have five chairs (all in different stages of disrepair), a coffee table, an end table/record table (to hold all your groovy vinyl records) and a sturdy (but kind of sad looking) little rocking horse. Yup, that's it…

  We thought it would be fun to post about the different pieces as we get them finished, explain what we did and what different techniques we learned along the way.  So here we go!

   First completed furniture piece:  Chair

Done by: Beth

Cost: I bought the chair at a restore for $5

It looked kind of sad, didn't it? But it was sturdy, and the wood was in good shape. I love the carved back and the shape of the seat.

  The hand caned seat needed to replaced, and I had no idea how to do that.  Some simple research on the web led me to a site where you could buy a kit that had everything you need + instructions.  the only problem was that it cost around $35 dollars….

  I had to do some more research on the chair itself, and what it was worth, and if it was worth putting that much into it.

  Here's what I found. The design of the chair points to the victorian era, meaning that it's over one hundred years old!  Cool, right?  The seat also means that it was made before they stopped hand weaving the seats and a machine took over.  On eBay, chairs similar to mine were selling for between $70 to $100 dollars.  And I bought mine for $5 (I love thrift stores!).

  So I ordered the kit, and set to work.  Actually I began by sanding it down and painting it.  For some reason I forgot to take a picture of that step… Then I started on the seat.  The caning has to be soaked in order to keep it flexible, and constantly spritzed with water while you are working on it.

  It really wasn't to hard. Just back and forth, up and down, repeat, then diagonally from back left corner to the front right corner, and then back right corner to the front left corner, weaving over and under my previous rows. Of course it goes much slower then it takes to say it  :) I think I worked on it on and off for 4 or 5 days to finish it.

     And now for the reveal…………

I roughed up the edges with some sandpaper to give it a bit of distressed look, then put a couple coats of polyurethane on to seal it. 

On to the next piece!