Tuesday's customer inspiration - two amazing pieces Vickie transformed!

Thanks for stopping by! Every Tuesday - if I whine and moan enough and someone gets so sick of listening to me they take photos and email me at sgalbraith@outreachcommin.org just to get me to shut up - I showcase something someone has purchased from EmilysBreakfast Furniture and either how it's been transformed or simply how lovely it looks in their home exactly as it looked leaving the store. The point is to inspire (thus the super creative and catchy name - customer inspiration!) and help others see past the dust and bad lighting at EmilysBreakfast and to the potential of our inventory.

Today I have an extra special treat - two very creative and fun pieces which were transformed by Vickie! Here's Vickie's email:

Your store has given me a place to exercise my creative ideas without going broke! I just love coming in and looking for pieces that I can repurpose and use around my house. I even have my 3 kids coming in with me from time to time looking for just that "right" piece.

Last summer I came in and found a yellow china cabinet. You might remember it because it smelled heavily of smoke and you ended up giving it to me for a pretty low price. Well, I brought it home full of optimism that I would be able to eventually get the smoke smell out (you did warn me about the futility of this).

Warning the next part is a little gross!

First of all, it wasn't really yellow. The yellow color came from all the nicotine build up on the cabinet! It took several cleanings and the summer in the garage before I felt like I could even begin to figure out what to do with it. I just loved the look of the cabinet but felt like it needed some vibrant color to really "update" the piece.

I chose this really pretty turquoise color. The cabinet now holds my grandmother's china.

I added rope lighting to help show the china off at night. I just love this piece! Only every so often do I happen to detect a very slight hint of cigarette smoke to the cabinet - but I can live with that! The chairs on either side of the cabinet are also from EmilysBreakfast. The slipcovers came with the chairs and I just added pillow cases to the backs of the chairs to give them some added color. The little pillows are from Pier 1.

I think the artwork over each chair is from EmilysBreakfast too! Am I right, Vickie?

Next up is a round occasional table that Vickie also purchase last summer. Again, here's Vickie:

The table was made of a really dark wood which really dated the piece. So I painted it a light cream color and I think it turned out great.

I love the detail in the table. The hardware on the piece is really pretty too. As a matter of fact, the legs have little gold claws on the ends and when I purchased it one of your sales ladies had the idea that I should paint the toenails. Well, I'm pretty sure she was kidding but I thought it was a great idea and as you can see I did just that.

You can't notice the nail polish unless you get right down there and look but I get a kick out of knowing it's there.

Thanks so much for all you do!

Impressive, huh! Inspiring too! Muchas gracias, Vickie (after four years of high school Spanish - that's the extent of my Spanish vocabulary - how pathetic is that!? Of course, I was in high school approximately 100 years ago...).

Most of you know I screen my donations and ask about cigarette smoke (and just to be clear - I have nothing against smokers but a non-smoker does not want to purchase a piece that smells so we normally only accept donations from non-smokers) though occasionally a piece slips pass us and then I always note on the price tag that it smells of cigarette smoke and it's usually marked at a steal of a price.

I hope you're having a good start to your week and I'll see you back here on Friday for my weekly update post, dear reader!

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Write by: Unknown - Tuesday, June 21, 2011