A Dash of Vintage for the Desk

On an exceedingly wet weekend back at the end of June, I was lucky enough to have an impromptu trip to the Terrigal Vintage and Antiques  Fair.  A quick wander around and I spotted a cute little stool with drop down steps that needed a tiny bit of love. From the moment I saw it I knew it was for me! 

 

She has potential!

 

My grandparents have a similar stool and I remember spending my childhood climbing up it to pretend answering the telephone.  Combined with the recent addition of a 1970's black dial phone from the Bargain Hunt Auctions, the stool makes the perfect addition.  There was one exception, the seat was adorned with fuzzy nineties cow hide print.  A little bit of my teenage years that I'm not keen on reliving (Rob didn't see anything wrong with it!).

 

I haven't upholstered before but a flat seat pad seemed to be a good place to start.  Finding the right fabric was tricky though.  Spotlight and Lincraft don't exactly keep up to date upholstery fabrics. So, it was Ikea to the rescue! The Ikea fabric range is gorgeous, I could have easily come home with a few metres of everything.  I chose two fabrics to try and this one was the winner...

 

TRÅDKLÖVER Fabric

The foam and seat timber were in great condition, so it was a matter of simply removing the old fabric and using a staple gun to secure the new fabric in place. The corners were a little tricky but after a bit of research I decided on box corners. The corners took a couple of tries but the result is super cute!

 

She looks at home now, but what should her name be?
 She did resemble a walking frame without the cushion, so Esther perhaps?

 

I used only a small corner of the fabric pattern to avoid replicating the cow pattern

The desk space with a dash of vintage

 

 

Roadside Retro Revamp

The first piece of mid century furniture that I collected was a hall table spotted on the roadside. It had been thrown out by a neighbour and was headed to landfill.  

Mid century furniture can fetch a fair price on eBay and in vintage stores, but many people see it as junk (in particular my mum). Not me though!

The table had good bones masked with 70's style. A black glass top, teak veneer shelves and drawer and atomic wooden legs. The most dated feature would have to be the faux gold handle and feet.  

I have held onto the table for two years waiting for the right time to resurrect it, now the time has finally come!

A good sand back and re-varnishing brought the timber back to life and removed the 70's orange. Strangely the timber smelt musty as I sanded it back. Four decades of dust perhaps?

Three coats of stain and varnish modernised the colour and added a glossy sheen to timber surfaces. The drawer front was a little too damaged so I covered it up with some white aquanamel paint left over from my last project.  The gold feet and drawer handle were updated with some black enamel paint. 

The outcome - the little table headed for landfill is now a funky piece of furniture in our hallway.

Roadside Retro

Lately I have been cruising Ebay in the hope of finding some retro furniture inspiration.  Danish design dining chairs and a telephone table were my main inspiration points.  A retro telephone table screams VINTAGE!! The need for a telephone table would have arisen from having to sit next to the phone which was plugged into the wall. Remember those? I do and my grandma still has one.  The worst thing about portable phones (especially in a house as ramshackle as ours) is that they get lost which leads to the mad dash around the house as the phone is ringing just to find 1 of 4 handsets!

I had spied a few telephone tables which took my fancy, one in Sydney which was selling for $200, a little above my budget.  My budget was a combination of reasonableness, but also the fact that my hubby thought that it was a completely useless item and why on earth would I want such a piece of junk in our new house?  (I have a feeling that there will be many more statements like this as I try to decorate the new house).  I happened across another table which was more of a hall table, very cute with spoky retro legs, metal feet and a black glass top.  I marked it so that I could see how much it ended up selling for.

Around three days later I was driving home one afternoon and came across an item of someone's lawn which had been put out for someone to take for free.  There were four spoky legs, four metal feet and a black glass top! By jove it was identical to the one on eBay! Yippee I thought!! Roadside retro!  I drove around the block and then stopped again to pick it up.  It was one of those sheepish moments where you hope that it definitely had been put out to be taken for free and that a random stranger wasn't just about to run out and say that it was just on the front lawn because they were dusting.  No random stranger appeared and I shoved it into my car and headed for home.

With great glee I brought my roadside retro table inside for a closer inspection.  The wood was in pretty good nic and in the shadows of my house you couldn't see the scratches in the glass.  Alas, in the sunshine entering new house they may be quite visible and it is probably why it was out in the street.  Hubby returned home later that night, came in the front door and said at the top of his voice 'What the heck is that!!! Where have you been collecting junk!?!?'

My response - 'I didn't pay for it so no whinging allowed, it's roadside retro!'

Roadside Retro Table