Rustic Gray And Tattered

Inspired by the French landscape and there beautifully weathered gray stone homes. Who can explain the nurturing, sustaining, and inspiring role art and design plays in all our lives? Perhaps it is the ability to engender ideas, that makes it so exciting to create!

"click on photos to enlarge details"

A French chest with little going for itself came to me with an out dated stencil job on the face of the drawers in a lattice pattern with tole painted roses in all the wrong colors. A weekend mission to create a little gray, with lots of added instant history to the piece making its presence important.

I never see beautiful home designs as a big investment, more often shopping for vintage junk can be a great bargain setting the tone for amazing French living. Let the language of the piece tell you what it wants to be and where it wants to do its job and it will all fall together authentically. This chest purchase was a beautiful find in shape and lines, yet a mess with its original busy out dated paint finish with all the colors one could imagine was painted to this piece, green, red, orange, pink, purple and yellow, I saw beauty underneath it all.

Don't let a great piece get away because you can't see the hidden beauty. Adding just the right painted finish will give character to the rooms pieces with a look that it has evolved over time.

I took and painted this piece an old aged French gray with the feeling it had been passed down from generation to generation. My French cottage fulfills a beauty for recycling pieces that find me. If a piece has worn out its welcome in one room I will hand it down to another room, while combining eclectic new pieces all in the celebration of French flea market brocante style.

You may notice the bottom drawer pull is missing a piece making it not match the others, instead of buying new hardware I opted to keep it this way, reminding me that not everything in life is perfect or needs to be.


"click on photos to enlarge details"

"Burlap luxe" has been busy creating for you, where you will find these birdcages in my peaceful etsy. Vintage in style wire birdcages constructed all by hand, adding a perfect balance of grace and beauty by altering each one making them one-of-a-kinds. French brocante pieces add to their sophistication charming them with flaking paint, bleached and weatherbeaten as if it was brought in from the garden. The patina to each one is layered with a technique that gives them a crusty build up to the metal wire form and the aviary wire mesh as if exposed to the elements with a lack of care. Tattered laces, fabrics and vintage embellishments to each one telling you a story of its own. Ephemera book paper and vintage book covers add to its gypsy-like spirit like non other.

"click on photo"
Taking notice of my hand made crown hanging at the bottom of the birdcage made of wire and embellished with little treasured finds. The cage topper was salvaged from a vintage chandelier, making a perfect crown and ring to hang this cage from.


Rolled edges, tears in the mesh, gaping holes add to the tattered charm giving them the feeling that these birdcages have been discarded and tucked away or tossed in an old garden shed with intentions to someday repair.




Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
and never stops at all.
~ Emily Dickenson




SOLD! and on its way to Jill in Canada, Thank you Jill!
Birdcages can be found in my... peaceful etsy!