nice press for the OPENING thursday!!!

nice press from the post bulletin!

Heard on the Street: Furniture rehab shop refreshes Chatfield's Main Street

Posted: Oct 30, 2012, 9:09 am

Everything old is new again, once Melissa Wood gets a hold of it.

With a background in interior design, Wood rescues and revives old furniture and home decor as well as creating new jewelry made from vintage pieces.

Her drive to restore and re-energize the old even extends to buildings. She has spent the past few weeks renovating a long vacant building on Chatfield's Main Street to bring it back to its past glory to create a fitting home for her new shop.

Watch for Adourn, her "furniture rehab" and upscaled vintage style shop, to open its door at 10 a.m. Thursday at 218 Main St. in Chatfield.

What exactly does furniture rehab entail?

"I find vintage or antique furniture and I make it fresh and new. That might mean fixing it or something. Many times it is just about using different painting techniques," Wood says.

When she moved to southeastern Minnesota, she found that the area just didn't have much in the way of this type of business. Wood had previously worked at a small boutique in the Twin Cities refreshing vintage furniture and home accessories.

"I loved to have those kind of things around me," she says. "Other than Lanesboro, there just isn't anything like that around here."

So after years of accumulating things from flea markets, yard sales and estate sales, she decided it was time move it out of her house and open her own store.

Chatfield seemed like a good place to do that, since it is on the route that many people use for the popular Twin Cities to Lanesboro pilgrimage.

Plus the empty Chatfield building was in dire need of restoration. Wood's willingness to improve the look of the small city has hit a good note with the people of Chatfield.

"This town has been awesome. People have been very welcoming," she says.

halloween...

adourn will be handing out candy on wednesday for all the chatfield kiddos, from 3-5ish.... stop on by for goodies!

AND to get a sneak peak of the shop, the night before it opens!!

sheetrock is up...color is coming!

SO we have had a ton of progress since i last posted! a lot was done this past weekend...the first layer of sanding has begun (man that is a hard job!), the bottom half of the building has been painted, partition walls have been set, sheetrock is up and taping & mudding has begun!!! the ceiling is almost finished being painted (its nice and bright again!)

this week the rest of the exterior will be finished, i need to make my sign to be hung outside, floors will HOPEFULLY be finished with sanding, the interior walls all primed and some electrical finished!

still aiming for november 1 to OPEN!!! whooohooo!!! i am BEYOND excited!!!

here are a few shots of the progress....

the awning is gone!!!

the storefront!

partition walls are getting set

partition walls are sheetrocked and sanding has begun!

beautiful floors under there...

a shot looking into the front of the store

ceiling with first coat of primer...bright once again!

it's moving along....

SO the shop is coming along...still aiming for the end of october to be open...maybe the 1st or 2nd or even 3rd of nov...its going well, except for the floor!! its the devil. it really has been a pain to get the old flooring up and to figure out what to do with the mess on the floor left behind. sanding was our first choice, obviously..and we're going to start that tonight. we'll see how it goes.

i DID get quite a bit done this week though! the outside has been painted...we have color! i still need to finish the upper brick area, but the lower part of the building has been finished! its supposed to rain tomorrow, so not sure i'll be able to finish it this wknd. it looks amazing so far though! i went with a charcoal grey for the brick and a nice rich cream for the trim...and of course a bright pop of mint green for the door. i'm going for a vintage color palette, so that will continue on the interior as well.

this wknd we have lots of help coming!!! YAY!

on the agenda this wknd: placing walls, sheetrocking, painting ceiling and sanding floors.  wow. but, on monday, it will look completely different inside!!

i'll post more pictures of the progress tomorrow!

and just a little thank you....everyone in town has been SO welcoming and helpful! last wknd, we were working on taking the awning down and a few guys in town were driving by and decided to stop and help...that is so amazing! it seems everyone is excited to have new activity in town!

its official....

adourn is now a 'brick and mortar'!!!! i've been working all summer on finding the right place to put the shop...and it's finally all come together! yesterday we closed on an old brick building in chatfield...i've been working on the design of it all summer and now its finally a reality!

just like most of my furniture when i first get it, the space is in rough shape...it needs A LOT of work. after closing yesterday, we went in there and took a good look....holy crap! i can see through all of the cracked plaster, the layers upon layers of carpet and linoleum and see how beautiful it will turn out in the end. my 'goal' is to have it open for business in late october. now, that may or may not happen..it could be a pretty lofty goal, but nevertheless, thats the goal!!

i'm going to be super busy working on the shop every day and working on furniture to put IN the shop, so i'll keep you all updated on the progress!

here are a couple pictures i snapped yesterday. day one.

here she is, with her metal awning in all its glory! there will be some major renovations on the outside!

a shot from the inside. like i said, layer upon layer of carpet and linoleum to come up! but underneath it all are hardwood floors!

there are so many random things put on the walls...

here's a shot looking to the back of the shop. its a TON of space...3000 sq/ft

and here's bo! he's all ready to go!

weekend finds!

this weekend was super productive! i ended up going on a road trip to iowa to see if i could find some new undiscovered shops...and that i did. there was this little town out in the middle of nowhere on the minnesota and iowa border. just a tiny little store out in the country. it was a mix between an antique store, thrift store and she even had groceries in there! a bit strange, but this lady had some amazing things... here's what i found there..

a blue floral pyrex mixing bowl

the most beautiful cornflower blue enamel bowl

a set of 4 milkglass mixing bowls

this retro set is in mint condition for vintage glassware!! a nice large serving bowl with 4 custard bowls

i LOVE this set! i had found the 2 bowls on separate occasions and found the little mugs yesterday

glass desert trays. these are so cool! cake and coffee...

i almost want to go back to that little store today, there were a few things i didn't buy that i'm kicking myself for now! i'm not sure i can even find it again, its quite the hidden place!

then we went to this little town in iowa, which i've been before....and this place was the reason for the trip. last time i went, there was this huge warehouse of a store that was just full of furniture...and i mean full! it was all stacked on top of each other at least 3 or 4 high. heaven. so i called the man that owned it to see make sure he was open on saturday...he said that he was at the fairgrounds having a sale instead..assured me it was worth my while to go! well, we got there and let me tell you, it wasn't worth my while. i felt like i was in the twilight zone or something when we walked in...you meet some VERY interesting people when you're out hunting around for things! i ended up buying a couple things from him....and he really wanted to sell me more...so he told me about another store he had in town. told us he'd take us there right then so we could look around. okay...my curiosity got me and we went. well, this place wasn't much better than his little fairground sale...but i did find some cool accessories there...here's what i found in his shop...

amazing midcentury lamp! the finish is a pale goldenrod with bright gold accents

another great midcentury lamp! cream and gold speckled with a gorgeous dark bronze strip around the middle

and of course an old vintage suitcase....to add to my collection!

i scored a few larger pieces of furniture at another place....here they are...

this old crusty chippy door....the colors don't show up great, but its a dark gold as a layer, then a grey/lavender layer and then the mint green on top...beautiful!!

crusty goodness!!

a beautiful side table

a vintage dresser on wheels

love this serpentine dresser...the lines are gorgeous! bummer one of the original hardware pieces is missing...

SO this was my wknd!!! found some amazing things that will be for sale in my shop soon!!!

special delivery!

i finished with the rest of the mid-century nursery furniture this week....it was delivered to its new home this afternoon! i have to say, it was so cool to see 'the mama' SO excited to get her furniture....she absolutely loved it. that's one of the most satisfying things, to see the excitement from the client...and to know she loves it and can't wait to get it arranged in the room!

here are some photos of the finished set...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

here's the nightstand with the fabric i put on the bottom...love it!

the little table and chairs. the table has a chalkboard paint on the top

i thought the chairs and table legs would look good distressed, seeing the other furniture was so cleanly painted.

i decided the lower dresser needed a little detail on the outside!

the only thing left is the crib...and a possible rocker. mama promised to send photos of the nursery once its all put together! i can't wait to see the bedding and curtains and all the little details!

pieces i'm working on...

so, i've added a new page to the site, { pieces i'm working on }. i thought it would be a good place to put photos up of all the cool stuff i've found, that i haven't re-habbed yet! if something catches your eye, let me know and i can reserve it for you! we can come up with a custom design just for you!

stay tuned, i'll be posting new photos this afternoon!!