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uncommon goods home decor

Decorating Naturally with UncommonGoods

I’ve been changing up my decorating style over the last few years, removing colour and moving towards natural elements like wood and textured fabrics. Since I live in an open plan loft apartment having too much colour can feel busy, including more natural elements creates a sense of calmness.

I got excited when I discovered UncommonGoods after they reached out to me to select some of my favourite items from their website.

If you don’t already know, UncommonGoods is an online shop where you can find sustainable, recycled and organic products. They work with artists and small manufacturers to provide consumers with unique and well made products, their company mission is really awesome, you can read their full mission statement and learn more about them by clicking this link.

I’ve shopped their website and picked out some of my favourite items to add natural design elements to your home, they have so many items made with wood! Check it out:Read More »Decorating Naturally with UncommonGoods

5 Tips For Styling Your Coffee Table

5 Tips For Styling Your Coffee Table

Do you need help figuring out how to style your coffee table? Guess what, so do I, kind of, but only because I’m having trouble finding a coffee table I love and that fits in the space. I don’t have room for a large coffee table, something longer and narrow might be nice. I’ve been looking on Charish for some ideas, it’s a great place for vintage and unique finds.

We currently use a vintage filing cabinet that Andrew has owned for many years, while I love the look of it, it’s really not functional as it’s fairly small. It has enough room for a few pieces of decor, but when guests come over there’s really no room for drinks and food. My plan is to replace it someday or find a piece of marble I can cut to fit for the top of it, add small legs and perhaps add a second coffee table that’s glass to sit overtop of it for a layered effect. But right now replacing it just sounds easier.

Coffee Table Styling

Below I’m showing a beautiful vintage coffee table from Charish and what I’d use to style it. I’m also sharing some tips on why I’ve selected these items to help you style your own coffee table.Read More »5 Tips For Styling Your Coffee Table

vintage furniture before and after

Before and After: Vintage Dresser

After a few weeks of procrastination during the holidays, we finally finished this vintage dresser project. It’s come a long way since we first got it. It was cleaned, patched and brought back to life.

Here’s what it looked like before we started working on it, yes at first glance it doesn’t look too bad, but it was scary. It had 1000 spiders in it from being left outside, so that took a while to get it clean and remove the musty smells.

vintage dresser before
The wood veneer was very dry and chipped in several places, the only area that was in decent shape was the top surface, the legs and the decorative pieces on the drawer fronts.

Luckily we were table to remove the decorative pieces on the drawers, making the painting process much easier and cleaner. The bow tie handles were also removed and cleaned up.
vintage dresser before and after
The first test was to find out if the vintage hardware was pure brass or just plated. You can do this with a magnet. If it’s solid brass, the magnet will not stick, unfortunately ours was plated.
Read More »Before and After: Vintage Dresser

painted vintage furniture before and after

Before and After: Mid-Century Asymmetrical Dresser

This mid-century modern dresser was picked up a few weeks ago at a Summer yard sale for a steal. It sat in our living room for a while until we finished a few other projects and figured out what we were going to do to it. It originally came with 2 mirrors that had broken frames, were bulky and weighed a ton. Luckily we managed to sell the beveled mirrors and made back our money on the dresser purchase! Who knew there was a market for vintage beveled mirror.

mid century modern dresser

I am totally in love with the lines of this mid-century piece, the asymmetrical design has so much character and allows for displaying books or plants in a unique way.

The surface of the entire piece was in horrible condition, scratches, water damage and missing trim. Very little wood veneer was salvageable, so we sanded it all down, patched and filled all the areas that needed it and primed it with CIL Smart3 primer. The knobs and pulls were super cool, but also in rough shape with the white enamel coming off and the brass peeling badly.

mid century modern dresser
mid century modern before and after

A top coat was applied in high-gloss Benjamin Moore Advance. The drawer fronts are Mantis Green and the body is Snowfall White. The legs and wood trim were sanded down and stained with danish oil in light walnut to add some contrast to all the white. Lastly, the hardware and feet were primed and painted with metallic copper spray paint.

Check out the final results:
Read More »Before and After: Mid-Century Asymmetrical Dresser