Repurposed Bowling Lane

Repurposed the old and gave it new life. 

 This kitchen island was created into a beautiful piece of furniture from
a section of a bowling lane. 

My friend took discarded church shutters and incased a dresser for the base.

 It would also make a nice shopkeepers checkout.

The base was a dresser with lots of deep large sized drawers for storage.

 Wooden brackets were added for extra support and detail.  This would fit in a farmhouse
 to a city loft style home.  If you were short on space in an apartment, it could 
function both as a table or workspace in your kitchen.

FROM RUMMAGE TO COTTAGE PERFECT

 Here is a Victorian style bed from a moving sale for my next recycle project. 

This beautiful twin bed has its flaws; the side rails are broken, the veneer
 is coming loose, and chipping.  It still looked like the perfect 
re-purpose project for a cottage style entry bench.

The footboard was cut in two, to form the sides of the bench.  

The height of the footboard would not line up properly so the feet 

were shortened. 

Cutting into a project like this you need to be aware of the possibility of 
nails or screws in the piece, it’s a good way to damage your blade. 

I used Annie Sloan Chalk Paint on the bench.  It looks rough now, but 
when it is  completed it will have a nice smooth finish.  

The bed was painted a cream, buffed up with only light touches of 

blue coming through.

ALL IN A DAYS WORK

Re-purposed projects are all sold at a barn sale held several times a year. So after each sale we venture out looking for more projects to refurbish. We start out early and go all day.  This is the
view from our office window today. The back roads have some of the best finds, as well
as the best scenery, we take it all in. This day we saw some awesome barns. 

This is the life of a real picker.  No one scouts out places for us back at an office, there is
no crew hidden in the back room doing our repairs, no cameras but our own.  We ( 3 women )
re-glue the legs of a tables, chairs, or dresser drawers. We pick it, haul it, clean it, sand it, fix it,
paint it, stain it, re-purpose it, and then we sell it in an old barn that dates back to the 1860's.

Today was hot so we shared a little lemonade with an up and coming Entrepreneur.  

There is beauty all around us we just need to look.

    I love these pictures they make me wonder how life on a farm was back in the day. 

So peaceful

Can you imagine the work and time put into these barns?

Coming back with a full truck is always good.

We’re always happy with “Junk in the trunk” it means we did well!

Part of my loot, more work.

  We want our customers to have a great experience when they come to visit so we work hard
to find the best and unique.  I hope you enjoyed some of the barns I passed by today.

The Old Oak Dresser

One Mans Junk

This vintage solid oak dresser looked like it still had some life left in it.

The case of the dresser was re-glued at the joints.

The spacers between the drawers were removed and then the frame of the 

dresser was prepped for painting.

Sanded and cleaned up

The top was refinished in natural oak

Annie Sloan Chalk Paint, Emperor's Silk, for the base of the dresser

Looks ready to display

It's on it's way to a new home

Welcome To Gigi's Blog

Welcome to Gigi’s Backroads Furniture Blog!  This is a mixture of decorating projects, refurbishing and re-purposing of furniture.  For years my friends and I sold our work in an old barn that dates back to the mid 1860’s, the owner is a great friend of mine.  

Many of our customers wonder how we do our projects and where we find the furniture. I hope to answer many of those questions in the coming post.

Come along and follow my path, feel free to post questions and comments.  Gigi’s Backroads Furniture would love to hear from you.

I could be labeled as a picker, antique dealer, garage sale junkie or a junk collector whatever you call it, I love what I do.  Located just outside big city life off a beaten path in Michigan.

Having received so much positive feedback from local customers has given me the inspiration for this blog. Our goal is to make what we do fun and enjoyable for our customers.   

A huge amount of work goes into our projects and after long hard days we stage completed projects on the old barn floor. Take a peek around the old barn and you can judge for yourself the draw to it. 

 For those that don’t quite know, this is not your typical barn sale that we do.  Men walk in the door, hesitate, many will turn around, and walk out. No tools for sale or boxes of junk lying around. We are more of a “girls” barn sale and a bit girlie.

Many women bring their husbands but it’s the women that do most of the shopping here. The array of furniture is creatively staged so customers can visualize it for their homes.

Many women make it a girl’s day out. The hype may be in part that we are open less then fifteen days per year. Those that know what we do want to be the first in line to get in.  It can get crazy.

We look at pottery barn to stay on top of what is in with color and fabrics.   We paint items and look to the awesome colors and color combinations from the Annie Sloan Chalk Paint collection found at a local distributor or colorist. We offer many styles of furniture from Vintage, cottage style, to urban farmhouse, with a dash of primitive, but  Shabby Chic  is still our top seller.

I hope you will come back to see the new projects we have been working on.

I’ve enjoyed sharing some of my photos and I will be sharing more soon!  Thanks again for coming by. Please leave your comments, I’d love to hear from you!