Amy Howard — who rescues furniture and restores them with her own line of paints, stains, and waxes — was sweet enough to invited a selected group of 14 DIY bloggers for dinner at her new home in Memphis, TN, a few weeks ago.
Amy has made DIY projects her career: she finds, restores, and builds luxury home furnishings, and offers makers her artisan-quality paint products and training.
Do you love to paint furniture? Amy’s products take furniture painting to a whole new level. Her finishes, the waxes, stains, Dust of Ages, etc., set her apart.
She has worked for Hillary Clinton, who happens to live just a few towns over near us in Westchester, NY. Her paint is now available in ACE Hardware stores nationwide.
I already blogged about Amy’s inspiring book. I learned a lot about her from reading it, and I couldn’t wait to meet her in person.
Here now is the whole house tour!
My flight to Memphis was delayed and I almost missed the tour. I’m so glad I made it — I had been so looking forward to seeing her house.
When we arrived, Amy and her husband Gene greeted us with open arms, and this stunning arrangement was the first thing we saw.
I still can’t believe that they moved in only four weeks before we arrived. My home didn’t look like this after four weeks.
Notice the white floors throughout the house!
Past the lovely foyer, you see this powder room. Amy finds many of her home decor at estate sales and thrift stores, and that is where she found this mirror — for only $30. She painted it with her lacquer paint.
The next room is this sitting room.
Here is Amy with Serena, who writes the blog Thrift Diving. Amy from One Artsy Mama is taking the picture. I was so impressed with the group of bloggers Amy invited — I was in amazing company.
One of Amy’s three dogs, who kept us company all evening. They are the sweetest things!
The next room is the kitchen. Those shutters to the left are actually sliding doors for the pantry now — what a practical idea!
Here is Sarah, from Sincerely Sara D, taking it all in. Like all of the ladies — and Frank, who writes the blog Glued-N-Screwed — she was such a doll.
The dining room is to the right of the kitchen, past those fabulous shutters.
Here you can see (from the left) Anita who writes Cedar Hill Farmhouse, Amie from Meme Hill Studio, Shanna from Restoration Redoux, and Yvonne from Stonegable.
I mean, can you believe this who’s who of bloggers I was able to spend time with?
There was catered food, and these lovely, vintage glasses I was admiring and drinking my white wine-orange juice from. Amy told me she found these at an estate sale for not much money.
Here we are, in front of the shutter doors. The pictures are a bit fuzzy because of the lighting in the house.
We all had so much fun chatting, getting to know each other, and touring the house that I didn’t eat much. Here are Anita, Wendi from H2O Bungalow, and Jenny, who writes Evolution of Style.
Isn’t this chandelier amazing? I had just read about it on Amy’s Facebook page, how her husband had gotten it for a great price recently. And notice the mismatched chairs!
I loved how much art Amy has hung on her walls all over the house. I want to get more bold about doing that in our Blue Cottage.
I’m planning a wall full of mirrors in our staircase, and a wall of pictures and vintage items in my office.
Amy bleached this furniture piece. She has a thing for vintage silver, just like me. Mine is never this shiny, though :)
This is Darleen, from Darling Darleen.
The kitchen opens up to this living room.
The focal point of the room is this impressive fireplace — Amy just blogged about how she achieved this mirror wall with her products. Here is the tutorial for the antiqued mirror wall.
Amy also showed us her bedroom and the upstairs of her home. This is fabric on the walls in her bedroom.
This is her son’s room — in a dark gray!
This is the en suite bathroom — I love the shiplap-looking wall with the farm light fixture! It’s such a fun mix of elegant and farmhouse decor.
This is her granddaughters’ room. This wallpaper is a bit too bold for me, but it works, doesn’t it? I absolutely love those sweet headboards. Amy rescued them from being thrown away!
This is the en suite of the girly room. Amy created the decorative glass with her products. We learned how easy it is to transform glass during the workshop the next day.
I hope you enjoyed the tour of Amy Howard’s home! I’ll blog about the day-long workshop soon, where we learned to use her paint.
I can’t wait to show you how easy it is to completely transform something with her products!
