A Day of Revelations

The idea came to me while I was stuck in a disgusting amount of traffic. I was listening to Lady Gaga, thinking how she should have a furniture line and how I should design it, when it hit me. I've always loved sketching furniture, trying to be Frank Lloyd Wright or Charlotte Perriand. I thought to myself..."Why can't I make furniture?" So I finally made it home and sat on the couch with a pen and notebook and started sketching, they weren't the rhinestone and stud clad pieces that I had imagined for Gaga, but practical ones. While doing so, I was also watching American Pickers (which I'm completely obsessed with) when I had another idea... Find old furniture and bring it back to life. Nothing kills me more than seeing a good piece of furniture out on the sidewalk just because someone doesn't want it anymore. First of all there's places you can donate that stuff for people in need, second usually the furniture just needs a good sanding and paint or stain to come alive again. Which is why, I decided to rejuvenate, transform, and revitalize old, unwanted, and forgotten about pieces. 


I have actually been going to Savers and finding nice furniture and accessories for cheap, I also bought a ton of plates of varying colors and textures. I then stopped at Lowe's and bought a bucket of adhesive (Laticrete), a couple trowels of different sizes, a neutral color of grout (also Laticrete), sponges for cleaning the grout off of the glass pieces, and a bucket for mixing the grout. 

I set up a table made of 2 saw horses and a piece of plywood in my garage, set up some storage, and backed my mom's new truck out of the garage because the next thing I did was take a hammer to the first plate. I found that putting the plate upside down on a flat surface makes for better mosaic pieces. (I wore protective eyeware) I don't get too many shards flying on the first break but when I try to hammer medium size pieces into small pieces, it's likely to have some glass flying. I wouldn't recommend flip flops or slip on shoes, I've already pulled out a couple shards from the bottoms of my feet. 

I picked a piece to start with, which was a black end table I bought for $8.99 at Savers. It had a slight wobble, so I checked all the bolts and tightened everything. (Before I buy anything I make sure it either has impeccable bone structure, or is just in need of slight adjustments.) I lightly sanded the table, because it had a few surface imperfections, and then I spray painted it. While waiting for it to dry I picked out the color scheme for the table and broke up some plates. When the table was dry I spread adhesive over the top and started placing plate pieces. While putting pieces on you may need to break more plates or make pieces smaller to fit. You want the pieces to fit like a puzzle. The amount of space you leave between pieces, where the grout will go, is completely your preference. I've also made some candelabras, a planter, a lamp, some accessories, and picture frames. I'll go more into detail about those later. I haven't put grout on the table top yet, because I don't think the color of the grout will look good with my color scheme. But I did use the grout on the planter I made. Tell me what you think!

Thanks for reading! More to come!