FunCycled - Interior Design, Kitchen Cabinet Painting, Furniture Repurposing in Upstate NY

As a blogger sometimes it’s hard to stay balanced and real. To show the good and the not so good. I don’t want people to get the impression that everything is always perfect here but I also don’t want to be a complainer. It’s a a delicate balance indeed. And to keep things true to life, I’d like to say that this past week was rough. For sure super rough. Being gone half of this month traveling to see friends and help them decorate their houses was fun, but it put things a bit behind here. I felt like there was a cloud over me just about every day this past week. Too many projects, too little time and not enough revenue because we were backed up. Not a good combination all around. Which then led to a bit of conflict in the family and an overwhelming sense of inadequacy from yours truly.

When you work with your hubby, problems like these can divide you or make you stronger. We decided on the later option and sat down for a long talk about everything. A word of advice for those starting your own family business about a problem I didn’t anticipate.  We are together all day long, John and I, but we don’t have time to “talk”, plan or organize. Outsiders probably think we would have so much chat time that we wouldn’t even know what to talk about to each other most days. On the contrary, our minds are running in two direction. I’m organizing, taking care of the business side of things and he’s taking care of the labor – making the magic happen. We found that communication was lost all together.

So… what did we do about it?? We decided to start having coffee, just him and me, once a week for 2 hours to plan out projects, staffing, supply lists, etc. We won’t answer our cell phones and it will be a time when the kids are at school or sleeping. No interruptions, no exceptions. That might be easy for some of you, but isn’t for a business owner. Some people might think, why do they always have their phones on them?? Well, it’s because that’s how we pay our bills. An email, text or call can decide if my family is taken care of so it has to be a priority.

What else did we decide? We can’t do this alone. We need to be more in prayer about how to run everything. God’s the provider of everything right? So we need to make sure we’re asking and trusting Him for it. Every week we’ve had enough to pay our bills (and the taxes… lol), but sometimes it’s a week to week thing and other times we’re booked out for months. We also decided to bring in a couple very talented people to help us out. First, my friend Chelsea at Chelsea Bos Photography is coming in weekly to take pictures of the furniture and edit them for me. This may sound crazy, but it takes SO long to take the pictures, stage everything and edit them. Her coming will give me more time to focus on the business side of things. We also hired a part time sub contractor named Paul to help John with projects. He’s a carpenter so it’s great that he can come in with no training and help John keep on top of the custom projects in the barn. We feel beyond blessed to be working with both of them. Now the trusting part as bringing people on can be scary right?? True story. ;)

I know this was a long rant, but I hope you don’t mind. :) And thank you all for reading, encouraging and buying pieces from us. We have been impressed and overwhelmed by the support you all bring to us, our business.

On to a very different makeover than we normally get to do. Jessica who is the owner of the Teal Mid Century Modern Library as well as the Magenta, Burnt Orange and Teal Dining Room Chairs had this buffet already and asked if we could redo it for her dining room. She loves modern styles mixed with bold colors. She also loved some of the original wood on this piece since the drawer fronts and doors were in good shape. The top was too damaged to bring back to the original wood.

So John sanded down and stained the doors, we used the original hardware and spray painted it gold with chartreuse strips to tie into the color of the buffet.

Isn’t the wood grain beautiful on this piece??? John said this is one of his all time favorite FunCycled pieces.

Then we painted the box with Benjamin Moore’s Citrus Burst 364 and did a protective clear coat over the top. Are you ready for the after?? Man oh man do I love it!

I loved this piece because it was out of the norm and has such sophisticated modern lines. Thanks again Jessica for trusting me and letting me create another unique piece for your home!! I love love working with you.

And thanks again to all of you for listening to my saga this week. I can’t wait to tell you how this week goes with help! Lots of furniture orders and kitchen cabinet makeovers are on the agenda for the week.

Happy redesigns everyone,
Sarah ;)

If you like what you see, please like FunCycled’s Facebook page to keep up to date on the newest finds, vote on colors and give your input on our creativity. There is a box at the top right of this page to enter your email address in to receive notifications by email when I post something new on this blog. Please sign up today!

Last but not least, let us customize a furniture piece for you. We create custom furniture and will deliver for customers in upstate NY and will also ship throughout the US. Send us a note with what you would like using our contact page. Or buy something that we’ve already designed from our furniture for sale page.

Hello from the busy, boisterous FunCycled world. It’s been another crazy week where I did more traveling and home decorating for my friend Marcie. Please feel bad for me, I had to leave warm sunny Florida and return home to single digit temperatures and snow. It was so so hard to do. ;) A huge thanks to Marcie for having me visit to help decorate her new home (a good excuse to get together, I’d say). Here we are, about to say hi to the famous Florida manatee.

And apparently molesting a manatee is an issue in Florida. Please just read the sign. ;)

And took just a couple of hours to enjoy the beach!

Back to NY I came after what felt like a blink of an eye. Boy do I miss Marcie and her 4 little kiddos. Now that you’re all filled in on my week, let’s talk furniture shall we?

I bought these chairs last summer because I knew what they could be. You should have seen my mom and I trying to fit these in her Subaru.  lol Funny stuff!

Here they are before.

Jessica reached out to me about a hutch for her library which became our Teal and Chartreuse Hutch Turned Library. While she was checking out the barn, she looked at this chair set and thought it would work well with her huge rustic farm house table.

I loved the lines of these chairs, but the bases of the chairs needed to be completely rebuilt. We painted each chair Benjamin Moore Navajo White, built new bases by cutting wood to the shape of the seats, added all new high density foam cushioning and reupholstered them with coordinating velvet fabric. There were a total of 6 chairs – two magenta, two teal and two burnt orange. All of those colors are in Jessica’s dining room curtains.

I can’t tell you how much fun it’s been working with Jessica. She’s such a delight! Every time I bring a new delivery, I hope for a clap and squeal of delight from her. We were walking out after one delivery lately and John looked at me and said, “Are you happy?” I said, “Yes. Why?”. “You got your clap and squeal” he said with a boyish grin. Yes, that’s what I was going for! :)

Here they are in her dining room with the chartreuse buffet that we just finished for her as well. ;)

Happy redesigns everyone,
Sarah ;)

If you like what you see, please like FunCycled’s Facebook page to keep up to date on the newest finds, vote on colors and give your input on our creativity. There is a box at the top right of this page to enter your email address in to receive notifications by email when I post something new on this blog. Please sign up today!

Last but not least, let us customize a furniture piece for you. We create custom furniture and will deliver for customers in upstate NY and will also ship throughout the US. Send us a note with what you would like using our contact page. Or buy something that we’ve already designed from our furniture for sale page.