Frugally French

     One of the very first substantial furniture transformations that I tackled was this little piece of work...

Believe me, I know what you are thinking and I can only imagine that the look on your face right now might look something like my mom's did the day I brought it home...

Clearly, this is not my mom--but I just couldn't resist myself some Kristen Wiig :oP

This sofa was an ABSOLUTE STEAL at $75!!! How could I possibly pass it up? And in the interest of full disclosure I must clarify that the picture above is not the ACTUAL original sofa that I bought and made over. Unfortunately, we never took any "before" pictures. But the wooden legs, arms and gold damask upholstery are identical to and completely representative of what I started out with. The only difference between our sofa and the one pictured above is that ours does not have the wood framing around the top and sides--SO THERE, I'm glad I got that off my chest :o)

Ok, back to the transformation...

Fortunately for me our sitting room, I was able to see far beyond the tattered upholstery and DARK wood stain and envisioned something along these lines...

Hey...a girl can dream, right?

It goes without saying that I was NOT willing to pay thousands of dollars to bring a little bit of 

Paris into our "parlor"...

But I WAS willing to bargain my way into possessing the beautiful silk fabric that was just what the Design Doctor ordered for our diamond in the rough...

Well, because this was my very first make over and because I didn't have a blog or a camera or any reason to think that anyone would care, I am sorry to say that there are ZERO pictures of the original sofa, fabric, paint, and their are NO pictures of the actual process either.

SO SAD, especially given the fact that this darling little French inspired...

--let's call it a SETTEE, because we like to imagine we are fancy that way-- 

Is now one of my most prized possessions...

I hold it dear, mostly because it never judged my naive use of a non-electric staple gun...

 Or my lack of adequate measuring skills that nearly led to more than one upholstery disaster...

Or my supreme cheapness  neglecting to invest in a rubber mallet for nailhead-ing (although, I really liked how my metal hammer enhanced the antique aesthetic I was aiming for )...

Or my delusions of French grandeur in our tumbleweed-ridden tiny Texas town...

I hope that my GAZILLION post-op pictures more than made up for my lack of pre-makeover documenting :o)

Thanks for visiting!

XOXO,