Tag: Furniture

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Upstyle Your Furniture: Techniques and Creative Inspiration to Style Your Home

Owning one-of-a-kind, bespoke furniture is no longer a privilege of the wealthy or the realm of professional designers. Upstyle Your Furniture shows the rest of us how easy it is to create custom pieces of furniture with a bit of imagination and easy-to-find materials. Why spend a fortune on designer furniture when it’s so easy to simply restyle old or inexpensive pieces? Inside, readers will find everything they need to create a look that complements their unique personality and style, including:An introduction to design basics, from tools and materials to understanding how to work with surfaces like wood, glass, fabric, and metalDozens of tutorials for faux painting techniques; refinishing and distressing surfaces; embellishing upholstery with trims, printing, and embroidery; and much moreResources for supplies, great websites for extra advice, a glossary of terms, and lots of money- and time-saving tips
An engaging feature of this book lies in its use of “case studies.” These brief profiles explore the challenges faced by non-professionals who tackled a project on their own and achieved great results. More than 300 full color images throughout.

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Inspirations in Painted Furniture

Painting furniture can be fun, creative and economical. In this book, you will discover clever ways to transform old or unfinished chairs, tables or beds into one-of-a-kind show pieces for your home (and for a fraction of the cost of new, factory-finished furniture!) A remarkable range of techniques are clearly illustrated with step-by-step instruction: staining, bleaching, waxing with colored waxes, stenciling, faux finishing, hand painting, stamping, distressing, wax resist, crackling, gilding and more. The book is organized into six chapters by decorating styles: Fruit and Flowers, Figures and Animals, Classical, Geometrics, Finishes, and Distressing.To Annie Sloan, every piece of furniture and home decor accessory is a blank canvas waiting to be adorned. Open the first half of this volume to any page and you’ll find multiple treatments of the same basic item type (beds, cupboards, chests, candlesticks, trays, frames, lamps), along with descriptions of the methods used on each one. The book’s second half explains equipment and surface preparation, then offers extensive step-by-step coverage of many paint techniques, including all the expected ones (sponging, marbling, stenciling, graining, and the like) plus some unusual looks (incising, liming, tortoiseshell, faux marquetry). Even the common approaches are often given a twist, such as stamping with found objects, creating a tartan effect with combing, or using compositional decoupage for a narrative scene. Some of Sloan’s examples require a degree of experience, but many (particularly those on smaller objects) can be tackled by the novice. –Amy Handy