Giving Wicker a Custom Look

These two chairs and table were given to me by my mom a few years ago. When she gave them to me they were white with blue& pink accents. In order to make them fit into my decor I had to make some changes. I spray painted them a taupe color and hand painted selected areas with rust, gold and green.

Here you can see a close up of the hand painting.The colors add a little personal touch to the furniture. I picked out certain areas of the chair and table that I thought would look good with some color.The chairs came with pads with the same pink/blue combination so I recently covered them with different fabric and added the small round pillows for the back. I basically placed the pillows on a large piece of paper and drew out my pattern. I transfered the the template onto the pillow and sewed them together. What I added was a slit on the bottom of the pillow so I could easily remove these covers for washing. That idea turned out to be good because these chairs do get dirty enough out on the porch.I sprayed the furniture with clear, spray gloss to protect it from the elements. Wicker is easy and fun to paint. You can really make it your own.

**On that note, I'm leaving for vacation in two days. We are packing up the family and heading to the beach. Please don't think I have disappeared because I'll be back at the end of next week. See you then!!

01 02 12

Painting A Wicker Rug

Finding things to match your decor can sometimes be difficult. I love the look of wicker in my home and it goes so nicely in every room. It blends well with different styles of furniture and adds a warm, rustic feeling. What if it doesn't match or is damaged? That's no problem because it can easily be repaired and painted. I have always found that spray painting wicker is the easiest way to freshen it up or change the look completely.

I found these two small wicker rugs in a store for $3.00 each. In order to make them into what I wanted, I hand painted them with acrylic paints. I've done this before and it works very well. By the way: neatness here does not count because you are painting over a very bumpy surface.

I set the rug up on a table and painted plain stripes with colors that would coordinate with my porch.

Here is the second rug. This is going on my tabletop. I drew out a random flower using a Sharpie marker and painted it with the acrylics.

It's all finished now, put together and on the screened in porch. The top rug has a piece of tempered glass on it that actually came with the set when I purchased it. The interesting part of the story is that I bought this set in Fortunoff's over 30 years ago. Completely made of fiberglass it will live a longer life then me! Every two years I re-apply spray paint and it looks like new. I paid a little over $400.00 dollars for it back then (pretty expensive in those days), but it has held up over the years so well. The old saying "you get what you pay for," is so true in this case.

*they say that you should occasionally spray wicker with water in the hot weather. This prevents it from drying out and cracking.

01 02 12

Making Furniture Match............

Many years ago all furniture in the same room had to match. You couldn't get away with throwing a cherry cabinet into a room filled with oak. Nowadays things are different. You can blend an eclectic web of painted items, various woods, wicker and even rod iron all into the same space and you won't offend anyone. The trick is to do it tastefully so it makes "sense" to the eye.

A few years ago I purchased a dining room set with a china cabinet. I wanted something very different and unique, not elegant nor traditional. Not an easy thing to find. Fortunately I picked up a set with a Spanish influence and loved it.

Now I find myself with a big problem, I really need a sideboard. I desperately need storage for things that I use in that room. It's been 6 or 7 years since I bought this set, so how can I possibly find something to match. I tried.............shopped.................looked.....................but nothing, not even close. What I needed was something that "wasn't going to match" because if I tried to match it, it was going to look horrible.

I stopped into a retail store called Grand Harbor a few weeks ago and there it was. The perfect piece but the wrong color!!!

The more I look at it the more I can't believe they painted the front rust and the top red! Red does not match anything in my dining room but the rust does, so there was only one solution-paint it! There were also a few small dents on the top so I asked the manager for a discount. He gave me 20% off the entire cost. It really pays to ask. This entire piece is made of MDF wood (that's the crushed and compressed wood). I guess the days of buying "real" furniture may be coming to an end. The sales guy told me that they are starting to use more and more MDF to make furniture to save our precious resources. I am all for that and the piece looks really nice.

Here it is with a new top color-walnut brown which coordinates much better with the colors in my dining room. The style of this piece is certainly not Spanish, but more of a dutch/country influence. Surprisingly it still looks very nice in the room and I now have plenty of extra room to store china, table clothes and other items.

The bottom line: You can buy something and alter it if you need to. This piece worked but the colors did not. You must be brave going in and remember......you can do it. No one wants to spend money on furniture and be faced with painting it, but if you want to make it your own you may have to do it. In this case, I had no choice but I'm happy that I took the time to make this piece fit perfectly into my room.01 02 12

Furniture Delivered To Your Door.......

Picking out furniture for your home is no easy task. What style will match? What kind of wood or upholstery do you want? How large or small does the furniture need to be? Will you have to special order it? Purchasing furniture requires lots of thought, planning and searching around. Looking around in the furniture stores that are convenient to your home seems like the best way to go about it, but what happens if you look around and you can't find anything that you like?
How about an Internet site that shows you all the furniture styles and how they look in a room. I found this site one night while looking around at different furniture combinations. It's very comprehensive and user friendly. A great way to see what's out there. I have not purchased any furniture from this company, but it's is definitely something to think about. The site provides you with a great way to discover what's new in the furniture industry and to visually see rooms already set up with the furniture arranged in it.
They carry extensive lines of designer furniture and also have items on clearance. They claim to give you the best prices out there. So for shopping around, comparing or just getting ideas take a look:

http://www.thefurniturewarehouse.netbar/

http://www.thefurniturewarehouse.net/group/Bar_FurnitureDining

http://www.thefurniturewarehouse.net/group/Dining_Room_Furniture01 02 12