Let's start at the beginning...
We bought a house...oh wait...not that far back...
It was moving-out day in our old house (yes the story really does start this far back) and I was dropping my kids off at a friend's house for the day. Low and behold I see a sign for an estate sale. Call this my first taste of my new found love. I knew if I bought anything Daniel would shoot me. Strangely the force wasn't strong enough to deter me.
I found two cute chairs for my living room but in the time it took me to go get my wallet in the car, they were already sold. So instead I found another pair of what I call "shield chairs" (I'm sure that's their technical name.) I bought them for $35 a piece (that's $70 total if you're math impaired) and they looked like this:
Not exactly show stoppers. They had old, brown striped fabric but the rest was in great condition. I just had them recovered in a leftover fabric that was sitting in my closet. Technically the piping was done incorrectly. The top was supposed to be piped in the brown so it tied it all together but he gave me a discount since he forgot that part.
I may still go back and have the piping changed but I'm still deciding if I like the fabric with the rest of the chairs...so let's say TBD. But for a total of $80 a chair - I have great, solid wood custom chairs for my dining room. That includes reupholstering!
Let's move on to the next set of chairs, shall we? They were from Good Wood and I stained them to match my old table. You might remember them from this post of yore.
Once I bought my table I realized they needed to change. I started by painting them Duck Egg Blue by Annie Sloan since it could go on any surface without a lot of prep work. The blue tied in to my fabric in the dining room that has duck egg and teal blues in the birds. Plus my kitchen will one day be a similar blue color.
My plan was to put dark wax over them (Annie Sloan) to make them look aged and blend with my other antiques. That resulted in this:
Sort've looks like a dirty diaper was smeared on it. Not really the look I was going for in my house - although that does happen from time to time with two toddlers. I forgot that it's better to put a coat of clear wax on before the dark wax so it doesn't "bite" as bad in to the grooves. Ooops. I also realized that the wax wasn't going to hold up to grimy hands or the scrubbing that is required after meal times. So back to the drawing board...
Fast forward to a few weekends ago when Anna M. and I took a girls night to her lake house for Operation Craft. We each brought some furniture and other craft items and literally let our creative juices flow. Part of my job was to repaint the poop chairs but first I was on the hunt for two more chairs to add to the collection.
The next pair of chairs took some visualizing. We hit the Camden Habitat for Humanity Restore on our way in and found these.
They were old...with smelly old fabric...and less than attractive. Perfect! I scored them for only $20 each. Not bad for solid wood chairs with a little character. I just love the back detail. So off to painting they also went. I decided to put a coat of poly on the painted chairs and since poly is a little yellow, it added a little antique color to them. Exactly what I was going for...although I will say my painting job was less than stellar. Hoping the food smears will hide it.
Once the Habitat chairs were repainted, I recovered the seats (they just unscrew from the bottom so new fabric can be stapled on) in leftover fabric from my curtains. Now they look like this and I'm in love!
For me the exciting part is being able to seat 8 people comfortably in our dining room. For years we've barely been able to seat 6. Not a big deal for some, but I love to have people over for dinner and the extra space makes me happy.
The other part I love about those smaller Habitat chairs is that they fit perfectly along the window wall when we don't have the extra leaf in the table and only need seating for 6. The fabric blends right in to the curtains and it doesn't look junky.
Never underestimate an old piece. With a little love (AKA paint and fabric) you can get a cool custom look without breaking the budget!
Oh and a little side story...I'll make it quick...on the way back from our weekend, one of the Good Wood chairs *may* have flown out the back of the truck and on to the highway and I *may* have played Frogger to save it. Don't worry. I did and all is well again. Just a few bumps and bruises.
No comments:
Post a Comment