make me pretty – geometric chair

I taught my “paint finishes and techniques for furniture” class again last weekend at the Visual Arts Center. It is such a fun class to teach. We went over seven different paint techniques for furniture and practiced them on wooden test tiles. I also brought in a chair and we re-did it from start to finish, as a class.

The students had three fabric choices and the class voted on which to use. Then we picked the paint color and the glaze. Everyone took turns sanding and painting and using the electric staple gun to reupholster the seat. I love watching people use power tools for the first time!

I am always surprised how well these chairs turn out, with 8 people deciding the fate of the furniture.

I am teaching the class again in July, if anyone is interested. Go to Visarts.org and search under “three dimensions”.

The chair before:

And after:

make me pretty – typewriter table

This typewriter table was another Vienna, side of the road rescue, from my friend Corbin. Her husband almost claimed it as his own but Corbin rescued it again and it made its way down to richmond.

I took off the desk top and spray painted the legs a dark red. Then I painted the wood table top with chalk paint and added the number 24. I distressed it, waxed it and put it all back together. Don’t ask me what the number 24 means, I just wanted to add some vintage numbers.

make me pretty – bar cart

When I found this crazy, folding up bar cart, at the thrift store I knew I had to re-do it. I loved the shiny brass accents, the trays that came out and the odd little fold up shelves on the sides. But man, oh man, what a pain in the but. I had to take the whole thing apart to be able to  paint it without getting paint on any of the hardware.

I decided to paint the whole thing white. I used Benjamin Moore’s Advance paint – it was developed for trim and doors and has a really hard finish. I wanted the paint on the trays to not get chipped when they are pulled in and out. I cut some fabric for the bottom of each tray and then cut plexi-glass to fit on top. That way, when you get bored, you can pop out the fabric and replace it with different fabric or paper.

I have been admiring a lot of bar carts on Pinterest lately. Here are some of my favorites:

From cupcakesandcashmere.com/apartment-therapy/

from smallshopstudio.com/blog/page/3/

make me pretty – more chalk board obsession

I am an alley stalker. I walk the alleys of my neighborhood with my kids and my dog. I’ve already turned Jasper into a young treasure hunter! He says “I want to find something good!” Once he found a Playmobile pirate ship complete with treasure, pirates and a parrot! You never know what you will find. I have found lots of chairs, tables and books. Around here people leave stuff on top of their trash cans if it’s something someone might want – how considerate! I’m not really into digging in trash cans. We all have our limits.

When I see that a house is being renovated I pay extra close attention. This is truly a case of one mans trash is another mans treasure. I have been stalking a house renovation down the street for a couple months now. I found a bunch of old encyclopedias, which I used to make fun holiday decorations, some good new wood boards and this old armoire door.

This is my kind of find. I would pay money for this at a salvage yard – and they would definitely charge it! The middle piece was missing, most likely it had been a mirror. I went against my instincts here and decided not to paint the frame a bright color and just hit it up with some polyurethane after I cleaned it up. I had the hardware store cut a piece of plywood to the exact size I needed and painted it with chalk board paint. I added a drawer pull, upside down, to be the chalk holder. And then I almost didn’t take it to West End Antiques Mall. I love the way it turned out but I so don’t need another chalk board in my house! But wouldn’t it be cute in a restaurant or bakery as a specials board?

Sorry the pictures are kind of crapy. I will have to start taking pictures of things before I take them to the antiques mall. The lighting is so crummy in there!

make me pretty – fancy desk

It all started with Trading Spaces. Did you ever watch that show, on TLC?

Two neighbors would trade houses for a weekend and redo one room with the help of a designer and a handyman. It was really all about which designer you happened to get – my favorites where Genevieve Gorder and  Laurie Smith. And then there was the “king of country” Frank Bielec. If you happened to get him designing your room, well, you were just screwed.

After Trading Spaces, Laurie Smith came out with a book:

And then a fabric line that was sold at Hancock Fabric:

I bought a couple of yards of this fabric with a master plan of something that I can’t even remember now. But I still really like it and have used it to recover a couple chairs.

I had one of these chairs sitting around that I hadn’t sold and I had a desk that I bought at a yard sale last summer and I decided I should re-do the desk to go with the chair. I didn’t take a before picture of the desk but it was a basic brown. I decided to paint it cream to match the chair and then paint the same design from the fabric onto the desk top. I traced the pattern onto paper and then used a piece of transfer paper to get the design onto the desktop. Then I bought a bunch of tester paints to match the colors in the fabric and got to painting. I always forget how long it takes to hand paint something but man is it tedious! Oh well, it’s done. Thanks for the inspiration Laurie!

make me pretty – sassy red chair

I have been playing it too safe lately. Too much cream and pale gray. So I decided to step out of my comfort zone. It’s time for red!

Here is the chair before:

I am still loving the red and pale blue combo so I decided to pair up my bright red chair with a blue and white chevron seat cushion.

I took this little lovely over to the West End Antiques Mall never really expecting it to sell. I have developed a theory that only my more conservative pieces sell there. But this chair proved me wrong. I obviously still have no idea how things work over there! She sold in a couple weeks.

PS – This is not the first time I’ve worked on this style chair. See the other re-do here.

 

 

 

 

make me pretty – 70′s chair take two

When I get a set of chairs I know I should re-do them the same and keep them as a set. But that is so boring! So when I re-did this chair match, I bought enough fabric to do the set. Then I stumbled upon another super cute pattern that would work with the  chair too.

So we are going to play the really fun game: which re-do do you like best!

Here is the chair before:

And here is the first re-do:

And the latest re-do:

SometimesWhen 

So leave a comment and let me know which one is your favorite!

make me pretty – the chair my class made

Last weekend I taught my paint techniques workshop at the Visual Arts Center. Not only do we go over seven different paint techniques for furniture but we also re-do one piece of furniture as a class. I bring in a chair, fabric choices, and we choose a paint color, wether or not to distress, and what type of glaze or antiquing to do. This is a lot of decisions to make by group vote and there were ten people in the class this time. There is so much potential for this experiment to go terribly wrong but somehow it always works out.

So here is the chair I brought in for my class, it was $4 at a yard sale in my neighborhood.

And the chair after. I think my class did an excellent job. I hope they had a good time – I know I did!

make me pretty – milk glass lamps

A couple weeks ago I was yardsale-ing with a friend when we happened upon a very odd yardsale. It was in someone’s garage and there were lots of old things in boxes that had never been used. Strange things that I would never need, like kerosene heaters and lawn equipment. We were about to give up and move on to the next sale when we were told there was more stuff in the basement. That is where I discovered these two cute little milk glass lamps. I’ll take them. They were screaming for new lampshades! I can’t believed they were every paired with these ugly checkered monstrosities!

 

So I brought them home, scrubbed them down and bought some new lampshades to re-cover. I had some of this cool forest fabric left over with the Roosevelt desk re-do and decided it would be perfect on my little lamps. Here they are after:

make me pretty – sweet antique estate sale chairs

Have you ever been to the Overbrook estate sale? If you haven’t you really should check it out. It’s held once a month in a warehouse on Overbrook Rd., kind of back behind the Diamond. They have a ton of stuff and the place seams to go on forever. I always seem to find something I want.

The last time I stopped by I fell in love with these chairs. They were only $10 each! I know most people would look at them and be like “ya, there’s a reason – there is no seat!” But I can fix that. So I picked up two of them and went to check out (bring cash or check, they don’t take plastic) and you know what the really nice Overbrook Estates lady did for me? She threw in the third chair for free! I didn’t even ask. I already thought I was getting a deal but the third chair seriously made my day!

So the first thing I had to do was tear out the old seat. Lots of hay, tacks, old leather and dust! I actually wore a mask it was so nasty!

Then I sanded, primed and painted. I distressed the chair to bring out all the detail and then covered it with a coat of furniture wax.

Next I made a little template for the size of my seat and had my dad cut out a piece of wood for me. Then I attached some nice thick foam and covered it with fabric. You can attach the new seat from the bottom with “L” brackets.
When I was all finished I brought the chair upstairs to take pictures of it before I took it to the antiques mall and my mom, who was over watching my kids, saw it and decided she had to have it. So this chair is now living at my parents house.

And my helpful hint for the day – self drilling skills. They have these little teeth at the bottom that help the screw go into the wood. I know I sometimes have a hard time holding the drill and putting enough pressure behind it to get the screw in. These screws make it so much easier!