I must've been channeling the Queen of decadence, which went over well. Every time I asked myself "What does this need?," I let myself answer "tassels" or "another print" or "something pink." Really, it was a WWMAD? For those of you not hip to the abbreviated or acronymed fab, the modern incarnation of the valley girl, i.e, saying "btw" or "din" or even, my favorite, the abbreviation of abbreviation, "abrev," I mean "What Would Marie Antoinette Do?" It worked. My first re-fashioned armchair sold within 24 hours on the store floor. Some lovely woman from Richmond snapped it up and paid me exactly what I had wanted. As Winston Churchill said, "These are great days."

First, the end, then, the means.

"Oo la la" you say, as if you were in a french cartoon.

Napoleon is really catching some z's on that handmade feather cushion in Parisian and hand-dyed silks.

Note: this, right here, is why I am a dog person. If I came home one day and found this chair shredded and my remorseless cat doing figure eights around the legs, I might sling him around like Elvira. Napoleon, on the other hand, just sleeps 22 hours a day and occasionally I find a tiny bone in my boudoir pillow.

Now, brace yourself for the before:

You can taste the dust.

Napoleon's cuteness is no match for this abandoned in Grandma's garage ghost chair. That awful brown hardly does justice to how gorgeous and intact the carving actually is on this thing. The feet also become lost, which is a shame because they look like little platform heels.

But I saw how lovely and vibrant it could be, so I brought it to life.

It's a little bit baroque, a little bit shabby chic, a little bit regular chic, a teaspoon of kitsch, a splash of gyspy.

Also keep an eye on me at www.ziabird.com, the jewelry store hosting my home jewels.