Meet the Man Behind All of Our Furniture!

Jean Baptiste!

You can tell he's cool, right? :) This is him greeting me at his workshop when I went to go visit. Jean Baptiste has had a lot of special requests by me with my weird American designs and painted wood which was thought to be kinda crazy. He has done a great job and installs everything for us at our house. It's been wonderful working with him!

The workshop is a really cool place where there are tons of carpenters and seamstresses all working in the same government run spot called Gakiriro. 

A lot is happening! 

This wood is all going to be my furniture.

I got the tour of the rest of the place as well. Here is all the big wood working machines. 

This is the storage area where finished pieces live. This is actually a good representation of the general furniture aesthetic in Rwanda. Curved lines, stained wood, very ornate pieces. Wasn't really what I was going for in my house unfortunately! 

Then he showed me where all of the seamstresses work, and he introduced me to the woman who worked on sewing up all of my curtains! 

After some waiting, I started getting things in piece by piece. Here you can see our old bed being removed and our new bigger Jean Baptiste bed coming in! Big mattress on top of the old bed...

Byeeee...

And why hello there beautiful King size modern black framed out bed! I just need the proper mosquito net for you next! ;) And real bedding would be nice! Also- check out the nightstands he made from my drawings too! LOVE! 

He framed some art for us as well! 

See how it turned out! These are movie posters we bought in Cuba and had framed here! 

Here's a scratch map from my aunt and uncle Cathy and Paul! (It's kind of too pretty to scratch!) 

And here is a map of Northern Virginia from one of my favorite clients, Jason, as a going away present!

This is one of my favorite JB pieces, our little bar. It looks like Restoration Hardware to me, all salvaged wood. He framed out the front of it too for me, a rarity here! 

He made us a really long shelf joining the kitchen to the living room- long enough so we could prop our projector on it and it would work perfectly on the opposite wall. Of course, painted black ;) 

And to line the other side of the kitchen, I had this cabinet made in between the fridge and the stove. It holds the big gas tank for the stove, and our water filter inside. It also makes for more needed counter space on the right side of our kitchen! I had him leave it unfinished because the plan is to paint the cabinetry blue! :)

We were so excited to cook and use our kitchen for the first time once we had it in! 

We had a nice bottle of wine- that actually we just guessed at the store, and turns out we Love it! 

We brought our dining table inside, lit candles, and used our fun dishware!

It turned out to be a great night in our home- and it was really feeling like home too! 

Thanks Jean Baptiste!

Love,
Teri