Rural French Washed In Grey

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My friends who know me would say that their is a tool in one hand and a paint brush in the other altering the well lived life of a piece creating a piece to treasure. I took this overly loved chest of drawers with hidden charm and gave it intense practicality. I took and removed all drawers and added shelves to it like the chest of drawers I altered in my older posting, but this one I removed the scalloped wood base trim work and cut new trim base from an old step ladder, it's functioning now as a storage cabinet filled with objects for everyday use rural French in style.

The kitchen inspired this piece by using natural materials I had on hand, it's designed to play a part with each object that speaks for itself, French textiles and linens, pottery as well as sliver in a palette of hues ranging from creams, greys and whites. I am passionate about rural French pieces that wildly call out to you, gathering and collected that come together to make a unique and passionate home appreciating the pieces for their soul (rather than value.)

Mixing eras is the easy part to a great display of French flea market brocante, yet keep it organized with an understanding of your own vision. My vision is staying within a colour palette of smokey grey's, dingy whites and well worn creams a back drop to live peacefully with giving the eyes a soft place to land on with rural French living washed in grey.


I knew I had to then paint this piece adding to it's charm of rural French and distressing it as if time got the best of it letting the little dings and fractures shadow through the layers of paint.

Pictured is the base trim I cut from the side legs of this ladder by removing the scalloped trim and adding the ladder trim to the base I was able to create a less recognizable dated piece adding rural charm to this piece was a plus.





The "Seawashed" note cards are created by a dear friend Kerrie at seacottage.blogspot.com they can be purchased from her artful etsy. I fell in love with Kerrie's sketched and seawashed shells and so will you. I used Kerrie's note cards as invites to a luncheon using my imagination for a South of France themed luncheon. The shell art was perfect and Kerrie's artful hands made them unique and so very personal. If you have not visited her site please do as often as your heart can take it.


Let the piece tell you what it wants to be.

Living With... And Loving The Find

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Having a soulful hand in what we live with making it informal, cozy you don't have to worry about making it perfect. What inspires most about country living is the pieces and colour we surround ourselves with. My kind of country, rural French living and loving the find. French country has always been a influence across Europe soulfully living with pieces that encourage and influence a French country life. I never look at the surface of what it is, I find the hidden depth in the piece while taking and redefining its use reflecting a passion for all things aged with history.


I try not to be sentimental about a new find, "I've let go of many beautiful soulful pieces over the years in my interior design business and shop that's just the nature of this business. Sometimes there is just that one inspiring piece that pulls you in questioning that it just may have to live with you for awhile. This galvanized zinc drawer that made no sense to someone else, made all the sense in the world to me.

I love the find that adds to an atmosphere for lost pieces that get over looked in what it is, to what it can become. Most important arranging them as though someone lives among them, adding truly a beauty to its life.

If a zinc galvanized drawer or crusty wire baskets and buckets inspire you then let it find its way into your home decor. I was inspired by this drawer and instantly knew it had to come home with me using it with a whole new function holding useful objects of interest reflecting the passion of its owner giving it a gathered and collected European flea market feel seeing the full potential of the piece.


Flea Montreuil-Bellay they have my kind of French country.

Letting all things galvanize inspire what I love most.

A Peaceful Piece That Inspires

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This piece altered and painted by Dore (ME)

Letting the piece define its French rural style, it started out as a six drawer chest and none of the drawers were in any shape anyone wanted to take on. I on the other hand saw the possibilities considering it's unsightly appearance, I had to alter it into a piece that would demand rustic attention while allowing it to hold onto it's history letting it tell me what it wanted to be.

Trying to not offend the pieces original purpose I removed all six drawers, then cutting out the six divided drawer supports and by leaving the main center support to the chest it allowed me to add random, less then perfect, plank boards across the center support and the bottom creating a salvaged feel to this now new chest of storage, giving the piece breathing space.

Colour was important in keeping with a piece that would lie firmly in a country side home. I knew at first glance of completion this piece had to be grey, a colour that would quietly complement any French room with a sense of calm.

It was on it's way to being that perfect piece but, I had to give it that weather-beaten look showing off the different layers of pealing paints. It had to show distressing that matures over time that looks as if it were clinging onto its history it acquired on its soulful journey with a worn-out softness of a darker white.


In my garage I select which chest of drawer get to continue being what they are and which ones move onto a new goal of proudly displaying, rather then being hidden away in a drawer. This piece achieved my goal for a simple French home that proudly displays a French life.



Decorating a home with recycled and up-cycled pieces and objects of desire make a home feel good, promoting individuality and a peaceful place that inspires.

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I would like to think a French artist painted this amature oil painting on stretched canvas and I think I will due to the fact that it is not an artist signed piece.
The fishing boat art 16" x 20" was a treasured find at my local thrift shop for less then it deserves, I was happy to have rescued it for $1.49 yes a dollar and forty nine cents, a perfect French flea market brocante piece and I am pleased to become its new guardian, a keeper of lost pieces.

One thing painted in this artful piece that just did not make sense was that the artist painted a perfectly round quarter size bright tangerine coloured moon or sun in the center of the clouds, I took it upon myself to remove it and paint a glow of it in it's place leaving this peace hauntingly beautiful and a peace that tugs at you soulfully.

A couple of days later I was able to pick up this outdoor house lantern at the same thrift for a bit more then the painting at the price of $5.45 I loved that it had a patina of rust and lots of weather-beaten grey to it and the dome glass panels were seed glass pitted perfectly. I knew it would be a perfect fit to my new painting arranging a vignette around the two pieces while letting it speak French as if they were treasured finds from the south of France.


"Creating and inspiring French country living"

Inspiring Hands That Create Opera

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Turn up volume, enjoy the music

Hands that have created French opera, I am taking ownership to the deed of my own opera theatre. I became a creator of an opera theatre that nudged me to feel something deep in my soul while tugging at desire to create with all the passion I could find, letting the opera theatre sing its own story.

Another set of hands that created opera are the hands of a dear friend Anita, at http://wwwcastlescrownscottages.blogspot.com her opera theatre leads to la piece d'inspiration (the piece that inspired) After then seeing Anita's beautiful opera shows and her grand stage of opera it was all I could think about creating next.

I artfully created paper doll mice who sing opera beautifully.


In my hands a perfect thrift find, a crumbling old mantle clock concealed what beauty it could be. I then took this empty box with a broken door to my home studio where fragments and pieces with history find themselves allowing me to give new life to an overly tired box that once held a clock. It was a perfect piece of French brocante, not valuable but not worthless, altering what it was, to what I envisioned it to become, giving it a life to treasure.

Opera lessons in creating rustic European romantic history, I then added theatre drapes for the last curtain call across the stage made from vintage ephemera book pages adhered to scalloped trim and by twisting wire and beaded pearls together I was able to create a grand theatre chandelier. Painting with plaster and paint I gave the walls centuries of historical decay and neglect making it a magical theatre that performs operatically romancing a heart.


My daughter Hannah now in college, inspired the role the mice would play in being included in the opera. She had a doll house that I created for her when she was 4 where people did not live, but small sweet mice did at her request. It only seemed fitting that village mice would play a roll in singing the opera in their new opera theatre. You know what they say, "It's not over until the fat mouse sings"

Inspiring hands that create opera with French brocante. I added all the embellishments from my salvaged brocante pieces to a plain nothing box. After it was given opera life my daughter Hannah had a request that I gift it to her, so someday she can pass it on to her child (tear) For now it has found a perfect place as part of the French flea market decor in her bedroom.

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!

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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.


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"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.

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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!