Remember what my $15 second hand table looked like before?  You can’t tell here but the top was really beat up.  And I wanted some color.

My friend Angela {remember, my yard sale shopping partner in crime?} painted it for me.  Updated:: Angela has a blog now! There is hardly anything this woman cannot do.  She has a business called Button Bird Designs and she makes all sorts of art and paints furniture and she’s learning how to reupholster and I just adore her.

And, anytime I stop by Angela’s house, she has to repeat things to me because I am so busy looking at all of her walls, digging my hands in a 2 gallon bucket full of vintage buttons, flipping through her amazing magazine collection, asking how much she paid for an oil painting and it’s always something like 7 cents from the Salvation Army and other tales that in my world are better than watching Entertainment Tonight. She could charge people to come walk through her home and look at all of her collections.

This is supposed to be a post about my coffee table but, I can’t not show you her home.  She doesn’t known I’m gonna be talking about her house and stuff~Angela, hope this is ok!?

Angela is especially gifted in finding wall art and then putting it someplace in her home that makes you want to steal it.

This is one of my favorite walls in her house.  Makes me want to stop everything I’m doing and look for old paintings.  I can assure you she didn’t pay millions of dollars for any of these.  I used to skip past the art section of thrift stores but now, after being in Angela’s house I always check out the castoff art.

Her home is about layers and colors and patterns and collections and story and all sorts of meaningful things.

Angela sees beauty in things that I miss. Like this drawer front. Suddenly I’m looking for drawer fronts.

More paintings grouped together~that’s her signature look.  I’m just declaring that for her.

Her craft room/office/laboratory is amazing. I want to sit down on the floor and play.

I love how she incorporates quilts around the house, and look, more paintings.  After seeing her quilt..

…I knew what to do with a quilt that I loved that always seemed to be hidden up on the guest bed.  I brought it down and put it in a cubby to show it off a little more.  Not near as incorporated as Angela’s but I’m glad it’s downstairs.

Angela isn’t just good at finding art, she’s good at making it.  You can see lots of her work at the Sanctuary of Davidson.

Have you been there?  It’s just a few minutes from BeBe Gallini’s.

They feature all sorts of local artists like these paintings by my friend Angie Moses.

I forget who did this one {don’t you like my fancy art words “did this one”?} but I’m in love.

ANYWAY…this post is supposed to be about my coffee table. I’m thrilled with it and we’ve had it a few weeks now and it’s standing up to all sorts of male abuse.  We eat, drink and put our feet up in this room and I’m not gonna change that just because we have a white sofa and a hand painted coffee table.  The color is watery, saturated and mentally cooled off this room a few degrees.

I even updated a few of my own paintings with some more saturated turquoise so the table wouldn’t feel lonely.

It looks good with pink, even though that pouf is for my office, I could use it in here if I wanted.

But it also works with the more manly  side of the room with the greens and the browns and the muddy robin’s egg.

I just love my new old table and the life it’s brought to our room.  Angela did a great job.

And if you would like to see Angela’s work for yourself, she’ll be at the Metrolina the first weekend in June.  I’ll be there hanging out with her too.

This is just like 10% of what she has and I’m horrible at taking photos of other people’s stuff, she’s got all sorts of dressers and side tables and coffee tables and a bed and bookshelves and I even saw a mantle in her garage.  Plus, her stuff is not super expensive. She’s really careful about what she pays for an item so that she can sell it for a great deal.  IF you see something here that you want to find out more about you can email Angela {because some of you are already asking me about my table and I know I’m horrible at returning emails} ButtonBirdDesigns {at} gmail {dot} com . Otherwise, I hope to see you at the Metrolina~it’s the same place that Laura and I went to shop with Eddie Ross last November and so much fun!