My Shabby White Slipcovered Loveseat

Do you notice anything different?    My loft ladder is gone!    My King popped in as I was trying to cat’s paw the nails in the floor out.    He grabbed the sledgehammer and in four or five thwacks had that ladder torn off!

Granted, I have to go outside and get it whenever I want to go to the loft, but the open space is worth it.   I'm very excited about the new possibilities.

I moved my Martha Stewart Kmart wicker loveseat first.   I bought it ten years ago as a part of a patio set for $200.   I love it here, but I also haven’t needed to go into my china cabinet yet.   I tried it with the chair and table this way, but liked them switched around better.

Before switching table.

After switching table.

The white denim slipcover is from my Ikea Ektorp loveseat, which remains in storage as there’s no way I can get it across our bridgeless creek and up the mountain at this time.   I can’t believe how much nicer it looks than the tablecloth I used to have spread over it.   I almost sold all my Ikea living room furniture - boy am I glad I didn't!

The cushions are too big for the wicker loveseat, so I put pillows on.

I actually like them all shabby-sloppy.   Not that it would be easy to sit there.

Just for kicks and giggles I put my antique chandelier on the ground the way Rachel Ashwell does!

The chair is this chippy white fold-up I've had since college.

A tiny space needs 'plastic' furniture ;-).

Eventually, I decided to be a good girl and arrange the pillows nicely.

I can’t wait to play around with it more!

I am sharing this with Cindy's Romantic Home for Show & Tell Friday.

‘Till next time, stay shabby!

My Crush on Shabby Euro Blogs

I have a crush on the European and Scandinavian shabby blogs Belle Blanc, Made in Persbo, Schwanennest, Songbird, Stines blogg, White and Shabby, White Living, White Vintage, and Weisser Vintagezauber.    Please see my sidebar to link to them, they love visitors!

The great thing about all these beautiful blogs I follow is that they do all white décor without being too ‘bare and spare’ about it.

Stines blogg - I love this blog particularly because it’s done by a 21 year old student!

 

 Here are some of my favorite American examples of all-white décor:

 

disengno Karina Gentinetta

Patti Silverman

Photo: Country Living

Sue Balmforth of Bountiful.   This is one in is my heart.

Pink is a relaxing color, but white is the ultimate soothing color.    Done skillfully, it produces a fresh and friendly room instead of a cold and prim one.

So, I decided to redecorate in all white – take a peek!

...stay tuned, and stay shabby!

April Flowers of the Catskill Woodlands

Background graphic Tattered Vintage No. 187

I wish I had a good wildflower book so I can tell you about my "pretty pinks".

I thought it might be Hepatica, but the leaves don't match the ones I saw on the Web.

Even if I traversed my 14 acres of mountainside woods I'd only collect enough to fill a matchstick cup,

so I 'pick not a one' (Edna St. Vincent-Millais).

They often grown right on top or through cracks in rock!

Until next time, stay shabby!

An Old Chippy Paint Victorian Farmhouse

Most may look upon this building and see a derelict teardown. I see charm and potential.

You’d have to win the lottery to afford to restore this home with its gorgeous mature catalpa tree. 

It's beyond a mortgage and insurance.    See how the left exterior wall torques?

But it would be worth it because of the original detail.

It moves me the way the Sistine Ceiling moves me.

I’d leave the blistering paint.

These pictures are from a Flickr group that takes

very inspirational photos of hauntingly beautiful Victorian architecture.

They leave me breathless.

Until next time, stay shabby!

My Old Shabby White Chandeliers

Photo: Mimi Duistenhorf

These pictures were taken for the real estate agent’s MLS listing and the web site I created when my old house near New Paltz, NY was on the market.   Alas, you, my gentle readers, can barely see the chandeliers!    I guess this post is misnamed!

The empire style pictured above is a $100 Ebay sorrowful 1970s thing I had to string beads all around the edge to camouflage its hideousness.   The crystal prisms hung on the bottom are u-drops from Gallery 84.

The dining room model is from Lamps Plus, currently retailing for $300.

I wish I had the time to make something nice of this one.   

I installed this one all by myself after watching my husband install another fixture.

The cord covers are made out of scrap linen from my old clothes.

The ceiling medallions are from Lowe's or Home Depot.    I don't like buying from 'big box' stores, but my local hardware store didn't stock them.

These are Home Depot fixtures, $50 each.   The thing is, when you need a light fixture, you need a light fixture.    You can't wait forever for something to show up on Ebay when there's just a hole in the ceiling of a dark room.

This is a $30 candle chandelier from Ebay in our bedroom.

There’s an all-white theme in the near empty house…

…including my little white Maltese dog ZuZu impatiently waiting for us to leave so she can go outside and play!

Until next time, stay shabby!

My Old Shabby White Country Kitchen

It’s strange.   As much as I loved the kitchen in my former 1890 farmhouse in a valley just south of the Catskills, I don’t have any good pictures of it.    Part of the reason is because I wanted to take pictures ‘when I finished it’, and I never did.    I decided to sell that house after 6 years, and I sanded the white paint off the wood floor and installed cabinets and granite countertops to make it more appealing to the average buyer.    I had an old stove and free-standing tables the way Edwardians would have.

And when I say, “I never finished,” or “I sanded”, I mean I – the only thing we had contractors do in the renovation was the roof, one part of the foundation excavation, two exterior walls, and then they quit.   And no one else was interested.    And that was before we ran out of money.

But here’s my ideal sink.    It’s from about 1930 and skirted with Martha Stewart Kmart curtains.   The hardware is a $15 reproduction from Ebay.    The real thing is hell to retrofit without paying a plumber a fortune.    This man my husband knew had the sink for sale for $200, and when I went to get it he led me to a spot in his overgrown, junk-strewn yard where it lay with a weed growing up through the drain hole.   I felt bad about haggling because he was an acquaintance of my love’s.    It cleaned up with a power tool and bleach.   It was very shallow and stained easily, making its main task difficult to do, but I didn’t care.

I’ll get an old sink again without hesitation for the kitchen addition I hope to do in my studio next year!

Photo by Mimi Duistenhof

The little chandelier was a rare steal - $50 on Ebay from some guy cleaning out his mother’s house.   It’s lead crystal.    I just spray painted it white with Rustoleum and added the ball finial.    I hated to leave it!

Until next time, stay shabby!

My Chippy Shabby Pantry

Every country kitchen needs a pantry.    

If I had a real kitchen in my little studio, I’d be certain to have a little pantry for storage.

I don’t care for ‘modern kitchen cabinets’, I prefer larders, butler’s pantries, shelving, and skirted counters.

 

Original, real, honest chippy paint moves me.

I took out my tools and put in old canning jars with dry goods with pretty labels I printed on regular paper and stamped the edges with my Fiskars punch.    I Photoshopped the French name of the contents on each using Tattered Vintage Sheet # 187.

Les Haricots Pintos – Pinto Beans – are special because my husband and I grew them organically last summer.

Oh, no – out of doggie treats, I’d better get to the store!

‘Till next time, stay shabby!

My Shabby French Kitchen

My Shabby Pretend French Kitchen, I should amend, for my studio has no kitchen.

But if it did, I’d have a little shelf for china, and tea cups hung, my tea infuser, pink towels, and lots of glass jars filled with delicate pink meringues made from my hens' blue-shelled eggs.

The blue and green eggs are from my Ameraucanas, the olive ones are from my ‘Easter Egger’, and the white are from my White Leghorns. 

As beautiful as sculpture.

My hens lay such pretty eggs I keep some of the shells for display.

This vignette was influenced by Fifi O’Neill’s kitchen and a pretty picture from Jeanne d’Arc Living magazine.

Photo and styling by Fifi O'Neill

Jeanne d'Arc Living

Until next time, stay shabby!