Interior chaos from the Petersburg studio "TreshVintazh"

What to do with worn out, but dearold furniture to your heart? Restore, of course! The owners of the family workshop "TreshVintazh" told us about how they turn grandmothers 'wardrobes and grandfathers' desks into unique objects of art. ", Within the walls of which mother and daughter are restoring old furniture. And they do not just restore, but turn old dressers and crumbling wardrobes into works of art: bright, shocking and 100% unique. We talked with them about our favorite items, the search for inspiration and respect for the "grandmother's" furniture. Inna and Yana Kovalchuk, studio "TreshVintazh" Studio "TreshVintazh" was born in January 2016. This is the second project of mother and daughter, Inna and Yana Kovalchuk from St. Petersburg. The main direction of the studio is the restoration of furniture for private and public interiors. vk.com/interior_treshvintage, @treshvintage_interior - Tell us a little about yourself and your studio. - We are the Kovalchuk family, mother Inna and daughter Yana, we live in St. Petersburg. Our family studio of interior chaos "TreshVintazh" is a total rework of furniture and interior items! From sad and unhappy tables and sofas, we create objects of art, any of which can become a dominant in the interior, an object of delight and envy. - How did it all start? How did you get the idea to remodel furniture not only for yourself, but for others as well? - Our main brainchild is the ProPiter mini-hotel, which we opened in 2014. For him, we redid a lot of grandmother's furniture, and we liked it so much that we came up with a separate project, within the framework of which we could restore furniture for everyone. We were attracted by the fact that we can give furniture a second life, come up with a different use for it. For example, a bicycle in our hands turns into a chandelier, grandmother's wardrobe and grandfather's table turn into a sofa, from a collection of books we make a reception desk, and from a sewing machine we make a dining table. — Помните ли вы первые предметы, которые made to order? - All our first works are in ProPiter. We really didn’t want to say goodbye to grandmother’s sturdy wardrobes, tables, sideboards. Probably, just out of the need to preserve the memory of our ancestors, our first masterpieces began to be born. Among the pioneers of "TreshVintazh" one can distinguish a sofa for guests in the ProPiter lobby, which is assembled from grandmother's wardrobe without doors (doors, by the way, became headboards to beds - we have a waste-free production) and grandfather's desk. At grandfather's table, we sawed off the legs, inserted the tabletop into the closet and upholstered it with a soft cloth. There is a place for a library in the niches of the table, and a gramophone stands on top of the cabinet. - Do you have your favorite items frommade by you? - Each object is born in the throes of creativity, they are all like family. But, perhaps, all the same, each of us has our own favorite. For my mother, this is, of course, a dining set in our ProPiter apartments, which she assembled in parts throughout St. Petersburg. She took the old sideboard from a St. Petersburg granny. We sawed it in half to create a kitchenette with a work area, a copper basin instead of a sink, and top drawers where dishes are stored. Later on Avito we found a separate Singer bed and a marble slab, connected them and got a dining table. For him, we specially restored pre-revolutionary chairs of incredible beauty, which we found on the collapse of Udelnaya. My favorite is a chest of drawers with patchwork leather drawers. When we took him away, it was impossible to look at him without tears: there were no handles, only someone screwed on the side of a metal handle from a Soviet window. Decor elements fell off, the color faded. This chest of drawers was like an old grandfather - he said goodbye to everyone for a long time, but we were able to give him a new life. It took a lot of time to devote to the restoration and think carefully about how best to preserve all the details, but the idea of the decor came by itself. We made the chest of drawers green, to match the color of the cloth on the playing table, and in honor of our adored Picasso, we made the decor of the drawers in the style of cubism. - What things caused the greatest difficulty in your work? - As for the difficult work, now we have a ZIL refrigerator, which we want to convert into a bar or sofa. We still have heated debates about him. With him, it seems to me, we will suffer! - Where do you get furniture for restoration and alteration?- We can buy already converted furniture from the existing ones. We take it in its original form from Avito or Udelnaya. Many in our city, sorting out summer cottages and grandmother's apartments, find amazing things, but do not know what to do with them, but we know. It is impossible to hide the fact that some of the handsome furniture are already in the trash, and if they can be pulled out of there, then we do it. It is impossible to pass by - the heart breaks. We can also "otTreshVintazh" furniture that our customers have in stock: in this case, they simply bring it to us, we discuss the details of the order, and later we give them the already converted interior items. - Tell us a little about the process of work.- When furniture comes to us, we do not always know what we will do with it, and it patiently waits for its finest hour. And it also happens that the idea is already there, but we have been looking for parts of the headset for a long time to assemble the kit. We remake furniture only from high-quality materials, its appearance does not matter to us. So far, we are limited only by the size of the converted furniture, since now we have a rather modest workshop. When we expand, we will be able to take anything for restoration. For the alteration of antique furniture, we often use the techniques of artificial aging and decoupage. Mom, as a real fan of Gaudí, loves mosaics, she can often be found here. I love natural wood more, saw cuts and driftwood - I don't leave the forest empty-handed. Therefore, my favorite techniques are related to drawing on wood surfaces and aging wood. - Do you have furniture in your apartments?- Of course, there are a lot of "TreshVintazh" in our apartments. Especially in my mother's apartment, because in the same room, in one of the rooms, our workshop is now located. In the apartment in which I live, everything is also decorated by us. For example, a book "The Wizard of the Country of OZ" is pasted on the dresser, and a large drawn owl flaunts on the wardrobe with the inscription: "The wardrobe is full, there is nothing to wear." - Where do you get inspiration for creating new objects? - We believe that inspiration is in everything that surrounds us. Especially in St. Petersburg! It is full of creativity, inspiration is in the air undiluted. Sometimes we just choose a day for a walk, look at buildings, climb onto rooftops. Walking along the bay, riding a scooter, good wine and emotional company all contribute to awakening creative energy. Anyway, we are two red-haired beasts who can get together and come up with something incredible just for the sake of entertainment, we do it easily! For a more global search for inspiration, we travel. The concept of a mini-hotel was born in our country in Greece, and last year we got ideas for creativity in Barcelona. This year we are going on a trip to Karelia for new impressions. - Do you take into account the history of the furniture that came to you, or create something completely new from the existing base? - The furniture we pick up is often antique and keeps a lot of history. We try to ask the owners of the furniture everything: who used it, where they bought it, are there any funny stories, maybe there are even photos. Also, we always try to determine in which factory and when this furniture was made. All this helps us to better understand the nature of chairs, cabinets, tables and other items, which means that we can choose the right restoration and decoration. If an item has a long history, it is simply impossible to ignore it, and the entire design will be inspired by these stories! - In what interiors do buyers put your furniture?- "TreshVintazh" is at the very beginning of its journey: only recently we began to receive serious orders. Our customers are families who have started renovating their apartment and do not want to part with the furniture they have been "overgrown" with. We change the style of furniture, invent a different use for it. There are those who turn to us during the arrangement of a new home or the opening of some kind of institution. They want the interior to have the same art object that will dominate the interior, and everything will instantly sparkle and sparkle around. - What are your plans for the future? Are you going to expand later or do you want to remain a family workshop? - Of course, I would like TreshVintazh to acquire a more stable and balanced nature of work. We dream of a big workshop and big interesting projects. But at the same time, we know for sure that we would not want to grow to an industrial scale. "TrashVintazh" is a very niche product, an elite one. You cannot release it for sale in furniture hypermarkets. We will defend its uniqueness and family character, especially since we like such a sincere approach to work. We remodel furniture and put a piece of ourselves into it.