After my 3 year stint working at my local Urban Outfitters, among some of the treasures I brought home was a victorian sofa that made its living as the shoe-trying-on couch. When Urban started making its change-up and moving away from the grungy Victorian thing they began throwing out their old stock. Ol’ couchy was destined for the dumpster out back! Seeing as there was nothing really wrong with it I thought I’d take it home. We didn’t really have space for it but I couldn’t leave it. It moved from apartment to apartment with us and even made it off to college in Santa Barbara with my sister where it was deemed “granny couch” by her roommates. Eventually after getting its own kind of college education it came back to live with us where we had even less space for it. Into storage it went.

The upholstery on the couch had a few small stains on it but was in great physical shape so I always wanted to try painting it. I saw some super cool DIY projects online where people re-stained and painted their stuff. It seemed you could really only go from lighter to darker though, but since the upholstery was a lighter yellow I thought it’d be a good candidate. In recent days I had been experimenting with my new splash dyeing technique on tees when my husband came up with an idea. Why don’t you try it on the couch? The idea intrigued and scared me all at once but we had to try it.

With splash dyeing I needed a white base to dye one but I wasn’t sure if I could take the upholstery to white. I knew darker had been done but never lighter. We decided to go for it anyway. So I bought a bunch of white paint and fabric medium and went to work. My husband and I both worked on it for a few weeks… coating, letting dry and repeating. It needed about 4 or 5 coats to bring it to an even-enough tone of white. Then came time to add color. I was scared, I’d never done anything on this large of a scale before but we just jumped in. It was terrifying. Every color I added ran like crazy. The white coats of paint basically waterproofed the upholstery and vinylized it. So my husband, armed with the hairdryer, dried after every color dyed. The technique wasn’t turning out at all like I expected, it was better! It was kinda making a graffiti effect on the upholstery. The colors were holding too! Couchy had finally come into his own!

After letting it dry for a day or two we did a photo-shoot and couchy went up on Etsy. (Check out the listing on Etsy here: Splash Dyed Sofa – Painted Victorian Couch – ONE of a KIND Avant Garde Street Art Graffiti Artistic Rainbow Upholstered Masterpiece. Sounds pretentiously awesome, right? My husband came up with that one.) Immediately couchy blew up! Everyone loved it and within a few weeks we were contacted by MTV. They purchased it a few days later. We wrapped up couchy and sent it off to be shipped freight to New York. (Thanks to Orange County Crating for their excellent packing and shipping service). We wished couchy luck on its trip to the Big Apple, hoped it had a good life ahead of it!

After doing a bit of moving and downsizing lately I found that I didn’t end up needing my old sewing cabinet for my machine. The amount of sewing I do is more on a hobby level… hemming pants for my husband and repairing this and that. A few years before I had done the work of sanding the whole cabinet to bare wood but I had just left it there. I had the idea to do custom staining on the top, maybe with some nice fancy hand-lettering but I never got around to it. It seems the best laid plans get better over time if you stew on them for a while.

After a trip to the Salvation Army, my husband and I came across some awesome art by a former Disney Illustrator. It hand drawn in pen in super sketchy psychedelic style. Kinda mind-blowing all the detail that was put into them. There were two dog paintings and 2 landscape style paintings. I was totally inspired.

Thinking about how to translate that onto the desk, I knew there were stain pens out there. But then I remembered an article about someone sharpie doodling all over a Lamborghini. That was it, I pulled out my sharpies and got to work.

Here’s what I came up with:

Front of the desk: Faux Drawer (ceci n’est pas un tiroir)

Top of the desk with foldout leaves: tattoo art

Back of the Desk: Nothing to See Here

Side of the desk: Port Side

Side of the desk: Starboard

Detail of Snake on the leg

BEFORE

AFTER

THE BACKSTORY: This little turtle guy has been sitting around at my grandparents house for as long as I can remember. The story I’d always heard about him was that he was a project for an upholstery class that my grandparents took back in the 70s. So when I heard they were thinking of getting rid of it I decided to take him home. My husband wasn’t so happy about my decision to adopt this new member of the family, especially because I failed to realize the turtle’s leg had pretty much split at the screw. After a quick fix with some wood glue and a nut and bolt combo he was still banished by my husband to the garage cabinet for a few years until I could figure out how to make him presentable.

THE PROCESS: For some reason my grandparents thought it would be a good idea to upholster the turtle in tablecloth vinyl, which slowly deteriorated and became sticky… but I figured if my grandparents could upholster it than I could probably fix him up too. So, after looking through one of his favorite Etsy stores, my husband found a Union Jack footstool and fell in love. Just as he was about to buy it I suggested we save a little cash and try to make Mr. Turtle a new Union Jack shell. Knowing I would never find upholstery fabric with the right sized Union Jack I bought some Off White Bull Denim and fabric paint and got to work. The old fabric was only held by upholstery tacks on the front and tiny nails underneath. After removing everything I used the old stuff as a template for the new fabric. It just needed to be tacked and pleated every inch or so. Once the fabric was on I taped off the same-colored sections of the flag with painters tape and sponged on the color. After drying for about an hour I made a decorative band from extra Bull Denim and nailed it in place with the upholstery tacks! We’ve decided to name Mr. Turtle “Jack” and are looking for a suitable nametag to hang around his neck.

BEFORE

AFTER

THE BACKSTORY: I’ve had this dresser for as long as I can remember and as soon as I decided to move out my mom “decided” the dresser would move out with me. Because of it’s dashing good looks, for a while I had the dresser as storage inside my closet. But pretty soon my closet was overflowing and the dresser needed to be pushed out into the real world where it could do some real good.  So there it sat, like a blank canvas waiting to be messed with… for 4 years.

THE PROCESS: I think the fact that the dresser was so plain made me more weary to do anything with it because you could basically do ANYTHING to it and it would look better! One day I snaped and I decided once and for all to finally go for it…so I scrounged around to see what kind of supplies I had to work with and found some mint green and bright orange paint left over from some room painting projects. After a days worth of researching vintage and new pieces on ebay and Etsy to get inspiration I seemed to be drawn towards the idea of almost overlapping  circles to draw attention away from how rectangular everything on the dresser was. So I measured out center points and made some compasses on each side to help guide me in making good circles. Basically I taped some string to the side of the dresser where the center of the circle would be and cut it to the correct radius. Then I just moved the string around and slowly taped off where the end of the string was and went all around. Eventually the circles needed to become ovals so they would look more proportional, so with a little tweaking I was all ready to paint.  It only took about 2 coats to cover both sides and VIOLA!

Apartment Therapy Post!

YAY! Thanks again to Apartment Therapy for all the love on my DIY Before and After Projects! Check out the post here…

Before

After – With Framed 1895 Isolde Print by Aubrey Beardsley

After – Head Close Up

After – Tail Close Up

After – Wing Close Up

THE BACKSTORY: As some may know, I always have an eye out for crazy owl related objects. So when I saw this lot of owl parts come up I was thrilled. They were totally out there and I had to have them! As soon as I received them though, I couldn’t figure out what I would do with them. All I knew was that he definitely needed a torso that suited him!

THE PROCESS: After a few years sitting in the box he came in, I decided to lift him out after my fiance and I moved to a new apartment. With new wall space to spare I had to find a good place for him this time around. Then I remembered! My grandma had given me a 70s printing of Aubrey Beardsley’s 1895 Illustration of Isolde. I found my owl’s new torso!Since the frame was pretty plain, it was a perfect match. I went to the paint store and found some acrylic to match the color of the frame and started painting. The owls eyes and claws were already a nice shiny black I decided to paint around them to give them a little more depth. Then I let them dry, measured and hung them up flush with the sides of the print. I think he likes his new torso… it certainly suits him!

Before – Stinky!

After

After – Detail

THE BACKSTORY: The story of the “Stinky Mushroom” gets its origins from the Greek “Fungus foulsmelicus.” Actually, this do-it-yourselfer’s-dream sprouted up on Ebay for $10 and it was love at first sight. “It will go perfectly with our new Thomas Wold Mushroom Table!” I thought to myself… but unfortunately it wasn’t love at first sniff when I opened the box 2 weeks later! It smelled heavily of smoke and had stains all over it, but you get what you pay for! So the day dawned on a new project…

THE PROCESS: After the fabric was removed we found that the foam was in pretty bad shape as well and was pretty much THE source of the nasty smell. So we went down and bought some 6″ thick foam from the local craft store and carved it with an electric turkey knife to the correct shape. For the fabric we used an Urban Outfitters tapestry in Birdie Stamp which we cut and sewed from the pattern of the old fabric. For the top of the mushroom we just placed the foam atop the particle board circle and covered it with a little batting to smooth out the jagged edges. Then we just stretched the fabric over the top, gathered it at the bottom and stapled it down. For the bottom we just re-stapled the fabric to the inside of the tube.

Before

After

Detail

Can you believe this crazy silver chair was destined for the dust-bin?

THE BACKSTORY: One day, while working the morning shift at Urban Outfitters, I saw my co-workers dragging this out into the back to the trash. This chair was part of a “found furniture” shipment that came all the way from Urban’s Philly Headquarters for the opening of the Del Amo store and had been sitting in the back for years. Thankfully they let me save it and I schlepped it home.

THE PROCESS: It didn’t have anything structurally wrong with it but the upholstery was full of holes and there were multiple coats of paint on the frame, including gold underneath the silver! To spruce it up we used heavy duty enamel paint from Sherwin-Williams in a deep chocolate brown and found this awesome fabric at ReproDepot. The upholsterer replaced the grass stuffing in the back and finished off the edges with a lime green gimp braid.

After working at Urban for two years I’ve managed to save this chair, a Victorian style sofa used as the shoe couch (complete with used gum stuck to the bottom), a 5×6 foot gold frame that used to have a full size mirror, and 2 marble tabletops… all of which I have yet to do anything with so stay tuned!

Before

After

Modifications

]]> https://www.alyssazukas.com/before-and-after/before-and-after-old-flannel-shirt/feed/ 0 https://www.alyssazukas.com/before-and-after/before-and-after-vintage-shirtdress/ https://www.alyssazukas.com/before-and-after/before-and-after-vintage-shirtdress/#comments Thu, 20 Sep 2007 02:59:56 +0000 http://www.alyssazukas.com/?p=281  

After

After

Modifications

Materials: My mom’s old t-shirt from Nordstrom, elastic

Process: When my mom finally decided to get rid of this, I could not let it go because the fabric was still bright even after being in the wash millions of times. I was inspired by the shape to make it into a flirty, fun, sun dress, and it saw much use from me, my mother, and my sister during our vacation in Kauai.

I first ripped the seams on the sleeves and stitched them both together to make the bodice, and rimmed the top with elastic to keep the top from slipping off while being worn. I cut a half-circle, which I cinched with thread, to make the keyhole in front. I then took off the ribbing from the collar, sewed it lengthwise to make a strap, and attached it to the keyhole. I then cut the skirt by removing the circle left by the neck and attached it with elastic to the bodice.