Trending: Vintage Navajo Rugs and Mid Century Furniture

The last few weeks I gave myself permission to not just "buy and sell" but to spend some time creating original pieces.  I can't tell you what a difference it's made in my attitude towards my business!  It's so hard to just have a bunch of iconic pieces and no way to express myself!  Who lives like that??  It's criminal.

I've always had an overwhelming need to MAKE things (ask my mom about my infamous butter sculptures!), and now that I've given myself permission again, I CAN'T STOP!  Hide the butter, mom!

You might have noticed and been amazed by the turn-of-the-century Thonet and Hudson's Bay blanket chairs from my last post:

I used the same fabric on an early 1900s Bell telephone operator's chair:

I love that the base is so Victorian, but it also has a certain industrial appeal.  Plus every time I look at it, I imagine a lady named Pearl punching a bunch of old-timey buttons and connecting you to the milk man or the horse taxi.

But this transformation is the one I'm most excited about:

Before you have an aneurysm over my desecration of a Mid Century chair and a vintage Navajo rug, believe me that they weren't that great on their own.  I said they weren't, and I saw them with my own two well-trained eyes.  So trust.

The chair was avocado green vinyl (you know, the color of your grandma's refrigerator in the 70s?)  The rug...well, o.k., the rug was really pretty.  But the ends were unravelling and it was oddly shaped and as great as it was, it wasn't valuable in the least.  Go on Ebay and look...you can get 'em cheap.

And, I was really careful not to cut the rug (pun!) until I had stapled it into place and was absolutely sure it would look amazing.

I think you can see this was a case of the sum being better than the parts.

I wanted to make sure the bird symbols with the emerald green eyes made it onto the piece!

I still have the back to finish today, and then I'll work on polishing up the walnut frame.

I can't stop looking at it!  Neither can you!!

Guys, if you followed me on Instagram you would be getting the blow-by-blow of all my furniture and thrift finds, projects, new shop listings, as well as gratuitous photos of the gross food I eat!

You can also use the Twitter button up there on the right, since I upload most of my Instagrams to Twitter.

Stay tuned for the next episode of Chairs Gone Wild, when I make butterfly chair covers out of old Army blankets!

Most of these projects are intended for the shop, so check in if you're interested, or email me directly at modernhaus@gmail.com !