Bianca Morales-Eagan and Debra Pesek

Who: Bianca Morales-Eagan (left) and Debra Pesek, the mother-daughter duo behind Tinker Bella, an interior furnishings and design company specializing in unique fittings and embellishments for the home, as well as a decorative painting service. They just launched Violet & Figs, a line of custom upholstered pieces that blends vintage solid wood frames, rich fabrics, and quality craftsmanship.

Skillful Collaboration: “My mother has always been a junker and a designer,” says Morales- Eagan. “So I grew up with the aesthetic. I went to school for international development [she still works part-time for a human rights nonprofit] but three years ago, after successfully reupholstering a piece of furniture for a client, we realized we could fulfill a particular niche.” So Tinker Bella was born, a tiny store selling French antiques, custom upholstery items, and ornate painted creations.

The Highs and Lows: Six months ago, the duo moved their business to downtown Excelsior and started to focus more on customization, upholstery, and decorative painting. But to satisfy the collector in both of them—“we love flea markets and junk shops,” says Pesek—they’ve also started selling their antiques at Hunt & Gather in Minneapolis. The items in their store are higher-end, hand-painted, and custom-upholstered pieces while the finds at Hunt & Gather are more rustic and generally haven’t been significantly altered.

Makes Cents: About three years ago, the pair was asked to guest design on Joan Steffend’s Decorating Cents, where they had to create rooms on $500 or less. As frequent contributors, they’ve created everything from a cabin room (with thick horizontal-striped walls, minnow-bucket light fixtures, a chair rail made from slices of wood) to a Victorian cottage space (self-tattered antiquated wallpaper, a flower canopy over the bed created from a window pane covered in fake flowers), a Paris apartment (Pesek’s specialty), and a throwback Havana space (brown and white horizontal stripes, colorful Caribbean shutters, a vintage bar).

Tastes Merge: Although both mother and daughter cite magazines, vintage shops, creative boutiques, and flea markets as sources of inspiration, they both have distinctly different styles. “My mom is very European, very ‘little Parisian apartment,’ while my tastes are a bit more global,” says Morales-Eagan. The mix of old and new, vintage European and global eclectic, makes for an interesting ying and yang in their designs.

Something Old and Something New: “The idea of custom upholstery was so appealing because it’s functional as opposed to purely decorative. We saw an opportunity to take wonderfully made old frames and give them a facelift with new upholstery and mint-condition vintage upholstery,” says Morales-Eagan. Recent upholstered items in the studio ranged from a 1940s tuxedo sofa to French settees, Louis XV- and XVI-style chairs, and claw-footed stools. “We love to funk each piece up using different trims, fabrics, and embroidery,” Morales- Eagan says. “Everything becomes a piece of art,” adds Pesek. The pieces start with new or vintage fabrics, tassels, and ribbons and are often embellished with doilies and needlepoint—all unexpected and definitely not boring.

The Name Game: Part of the fun of finishing new items is creating the item’s name. After seeing a tattered, smelly, and ripped-up sofa, settee, or chair on the side of the road and watching it develop into a statement objet d’art dressed in as many as six different fabrics, the names—including Cake, The Floridian, and Tuxedo Pool—come to the duo organically.

Find Tinker Bella at Violets & Figs, 404 2nd St., Excelsior, 612-770-5559; Hunt & Gather, 4944 Xerxes Ave. S., Mpls., 612-455-0250, and on HGTV’s Decorating Cents.