Today we’d like to introduce you to Michelle Felan.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Our journey started about ten years ago, unbeknownst to me. I remember being at my grandma’s, visiting with her, and picking up a good housekeeping magazine to pass the time. I remember just flipping through it and I came across an article of revamping your old furniture pieces. I thought to myself, I can do this. At the time our girls were young, in grade school and we didn’t have the budget for Pottery Barn or Restoration Hardware pieces. You know, all these high-end quality pieces I had admired for so many years. So, I took the magazine home with me and started working on our nightstand from our matching bedroom set. It was definitely clunky, super outdated, brown and boring. It came out so hideous, but I remember being so proud and so excited about it. My husband, of course, being so proud of me just kept telling me how nice it was, even though I knew it was not. It would be a while before I attempted another piece, but this time when I did I didn’t stop. I can’t remember the next piece but I just remember every piece of furniture kept getting better and better. It turned into friends and family asking me to redo their pieces and it just took off from there.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Oh my god no, not at all. I had so many times I would think to myself “what am I doing?”. Sometimes, the idea I had for a piece would come out so horrible, just terrible and I would think to myself “I can’t leave it like that”. So, here I would go, sanding it all down, starting all over and seriously contemplating setting it on fire. There would be times when nothing would go our way, it’s raining, the stain isn’t taking, the paint isn’t adhering and nothing is falling into place. Doing local markets moving around these very heavy antique pieces that I was so excited to debut and something would break or scratch. It’s hard to instill confidence into a potential customer when our pieces are not in immaculate conditions. Even just doing a market and not selling a single piece, can really just test your certainty in yourself.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Well, I’ve always been a stay at home mom, and I knew I wanted something more for myself. Don’t get me wrong I love our girls and our journey, I wouldn’t change a thing. I just wanted something that was mine. I’ve always loved interior design and have so many magazines going back at least ten years on home design. I mean now there is Pinterest but I’ve always been drawn to magazines. So redoing all these pieces of furniture as far as styles, colors and design I wanted to be versatile. I went through so many different styles of design farmhouse, traditional, French provincial, art deco, danish, mcm etc. But the one I kept going back to and was always more excited to work on was the mid-century modern pieces. I just love the Iines and even though so many people think it’s very basic, I see so much adaptability. I feel what sets us apart is I want to always try something different, I don’t want to continue doing the same piece, the same color. I want to add designs, I love adding those wood tones in there somehow. And we offer upholstery options, which I know is a different monster when it comes to refinishing/restoring furniture.
Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
I would say my age/life experiences. I was always ahead of the game since I was young. I graduated from HS young, I started college young and I was married and became a mom young. My husband was a prior military so here I was this young adult with two daughters moving from one state to another. At the time I was so ignorant of life and how difficult it could be, especially us being so young with two special needs children. Looking back at our story I love it, every single difficult hill we climbed. I hated going through it, us living barely paycheck to paycheck. But I feel that was the backbone of who we are, we try to be so humble and always willing to give and help. I have pictures of our first Christmas being married, literally just a tree in the middle of the living room floor and no other furniture. It taught us so much, so many trials and tribulations I wouldn’t change.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.freebirdrestorationsanddesigns.com
- Instagram: freebirdrestorationanddesign
Image Credits
Michelle Felan
