An adorable red bench !

This beautiful bench, originally was a brown boring bench from a breakfast nook set. After some serious sanding and replacing the hardware, it became a jewel to our store. It was made in a shabby chic style with distressed edges. I added some roses on the back panels to make it more glamorous. It sold fast and now it decorates a beautiful house in Idyllwild, CA.

 

 

Ready bench in the store

roses painting  detail, and on the right side you can see the original stamp of the company that made the bench back in 1950's

The brown color inside was the original color of the whole thing.  I found it to be in a nice contrast with the red

 the bench in the store

 


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 Emmanuel & Sky www.artfulruins.com

A vintage Formica laminate dresser changed its looks for good!

This dresser with 10 drawers was a big challenge. It looked OK, and I though that was going to be an easy job. I was so wrong!the top was Formica, in a very bad condition which needed to be removed. After many trips to home improvement stores, we found the right piece, which was going to replace the ugly Formica.. I sanded it down all over and I used some natural brown stain to give this walnut color.



veneer hot tape for the edges to complete the look

Add caption

 

 

 

 

 

once the dresser was dry from the stain, I start painting on the top a beautiful symmetric design ...

 

 

 

once the painting was done, the dresser left alone to rest for couple of days. 

At the end I put 4 coats of glossy varnish  (12 hours between each coat)

 

 

 

finishing the details

I used the same hardware , beautiful Americana style..

 

and ready!

 

If you have any questions regarding a piece of furniture that you want to give a different look, don't hesitate to contact us. I will be more than happy to give you some suggestions





Emmanuel & Sky www.arfulruins.com

1920's dining set! Like new!

Hi all! 

 

This is the awesome 1920's dining table we have at the store! The design I did on the surface matches the new upholstery.

the table in the store

 

but.. The table was not in the best condition when it arrived to our hands.. Was like this : 

 

 

 

 

chairs in original condition. preety bad huh?

the plain surface of the table, in bad condition as well..

 

 

 

 

We stripped down the table and chairs from all colors and removed the old upholstery. Then we found this beautiful fabric for the chairs.

 

I used all natural dyes to give to the wood this beautiful walnut color, and then painted on the surface this original design that we wanted to match the chairs. After several layers of good varnish the table was ready.

 

 

This dining set is up for sale at:

 www.artfulruins.com

Emmanuel & Sky

Old stuff with great potential! DIY

          Sometimes you might find in your garage or in your storage room an old piece of furniture. Most of you will just place it next to the garbage bin with a "free" sign on it. DON'T  do that.! Take a better look at it and imagine it in a different color, try to picture it with stripes, with dots or with a scene painted on it. The same could happen with a space or with your house.

When Sky and I found our space for Artful Ruins, it was.. ruins for us. That's how the name came...

take a look at this picture , an old lawyer's office, with 20 + years old carpeting, plain white walls and no style. None!

However, we loved it! wasn't the space that someone will give you, ready, perfect; it was a challenge! 

First, we needed the previous owner out of there. And that was the easy part! within a month he was gone, and his furniture..

It was almost the middle of September when we finally received the keys for the store and we had less than 20 days to the opening day! In fact, we had only the evenings free to work there because of our daily jobs. 

We removed the old nasty, commercial 20+ years old carpet and let it bare concrete.

Getting the inspiration from one of my paintings of Greece, we decided that we want to model our baby after this scene..

...and we started with the floor, it needed to change, to be more inviting, more Mediterranean ,more colorful. The real stones or marble was a very expensive solution, and we definitely didn't like carpet!


I decided to paint the floor. I used stains, primers and sealed varnish...

Now everyone admires the result and we are very proud of our floor!

did the walls...

add a "brick" wall

Aaaand it was ready, with much work, plenty of hours, sweat and only by 2 people, us! Ready to be filled with art, re-crafted old furniture, antiques and

1950's Ethan Allen re-crafted entrance table

everything we and our clients like!

view from the outside

              Emmanuel & Sky, www.artfulruins.com