“Grain Sack” Office Chair

OK, here’s a bad-blogger moment.  I don’t have any before or even middle pictures of this chair—just the afters.

A friend of mine gave the chair to me, knowing that I was hoping to convince my husband to use it with the pretty new office desk (no such luck).  It has a nice wood frame, but it was chipped and worn.  Since it was already a dark, faux-wood-grain finish, I decided to spare myself some grief (and work) and keep it dark—it got a coat of black paint.

I found this nice embroidered linen-look fabric at Hobby Lobby, and it reminded me of a grain sack.  But when I first recovered the seat, I was seriously under-whelmed.  It seemed too bleahh next to the dark chair.

What to do…what to do…

I decided to “highlight” the grain-sack look by stenciling on a number.  It’s amazing how such a simple change made me like the chair a whole lot more.  The black number seemed to tie the seat cover in with the frame—and it’s just more fun to look at that way!

This table will be available at the Whitaker Flea Market on June 16! Hope to see you there!

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Linking up here:

Domestically Speaking	Elizabeth & Co.
Primitive & Proper	The CSI Project
Friday Remodelaholic	2805
My Simple Home Life’s Simple Creations Friday	Miss Mustard Seed’s Furniture Feature Friday
Funky Junk’s Saturday Night Special	The DIY Show Off
Beyond the Picket Fence	Someday Crafts
Knick of Time	My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia
Perfectly Imperfect	{Primp}
Simply Klassic Sundays	My Repurposed Life
From My Front Porch to Yours	It’s So Very Cheri
Cowgirl Up!	{aka} design

Tres Chic!

This project has been featured at:

Thanks!!

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I have been caught up in the number craze for quite some time now.... I have put numbers on stools, dressers, and desks! And I haven't tired of them yet.

So when I was lucky enough to find two sets of stools just before the Spring Market, I decided to number those as well.

Here are three oak bar stools before:

...and here are the three oak bar stools after a little dark walnut stain, white paint, and number words...but in French!


The next set of bar stools intrigued me because of their metal bases:


If I were guessing, I'd say that these originally had puffy vinyl seats on them, but they had obviously been replaced with these boring wood rounds. I decided to make them a little less boring...and I am so sorry that I don't have better "after" pictures; that got forgotten in the excitement of the day!

So here's a glimpse. I painted the tops in aqua blue, and used silver paint for numerals in brackets. Then washed over the tops with diluted white acrylic paint.

The number craze...I'm a proud fanatic! :-)

What's your sign?

This is what my kitchen looked like yesterday before dinner:

I was soooo grateful for leftovers last night!

What was I doing, you ask? Well, I was finally doing SOMEthing with a stack of cupboard doors I bought at a RE-Store closing last summer (they were about $2/each). I painted eight cupboard doors in a creamy white, and then turned them in to SIGNS inspired by Miss Mustard Seed and Miss Funky Junk!

I used my Silhouette to design the lettering for each sign.
Here's what I've come up with so far...

The "Farmers Market" sign is huge...and probably my least favorite. I didn't care for how "flat" the black lettering looked on the white background, even after I glazed and distressed the sign. It's hard to tell, but the letters on the top row have been given a green "shadow," while the bottom letters are waiting to be done. It gave the sign some more depth and interest.

I decided, however, that I preferred white letters on a bright background. Here are some of my other completed signs!

This is the first one I tried the black shadowing on, and I really liked it, even though I didn't know what I was doing. My husband has not forgiven me for using his very-special-model paintbrushes for my signs!

Here's a completed "Farmers Market."


"Juicy Berries" was a really really bright green. With a brown glaze, it's only really.

"Fresh Cupcakes" is my favorite!

So...which one do you like?
Any suggestions for more signs?
I have more cupboard doors!

38 Flowers

The first piece of furniture I bought to kick off my spring-painting-frenzy was NOT the first piece of furniture I finished!

My first purchase was this Bassett dresser. I looked at it a couple of times before I broke down and bought it...after all, my husband did leave town...and his space in the garage empty! :-)

Here she is with all her drawers taken out and the handles off...my camera and I still need to develop a better relationship.

Maybe we would if I didn't keep having affairs with furniture...

It's definitely a little bit "retro."

I picked up a quart of "oops" paint in a beautiful aqua blue. My plan was simple...paint the wood blue, paint the pulls and metal trim silver, and spray on a coat of polyacrylic to protect it all.

It didn't quite work out.

EPIC FAIL!!!

I wish I knew exactly what happened. The paint went on beautifully, and all was dandy until I sprayed on the polyacrylic. Then, without warning, ugly yellow stains started to seep up through the paint! It didn't happen everywhere...but it looked awful wherever it did.

I almost swore.

I wasn't willing to give up at that point.

I thought to myself,

"Maybe I can still work with this! I'll make it look like it was on purpose!"

So I decided to glaze it with my Minwax polyshades, just like I used for the cute side table.

The above was a result of that so-NOT-inspired decision. Need a reminder? Here it is again:

It looked like it had been dragged through the mud.

There was nothing left to try. I had to let it dry for several days to let the poly cure--so I could sand it off . And I started over.

Since I had to do all that work over again, though, this time I decided to step it up a notch.

I used my Silhouette (I never mentioned I got a Silhouette for Christmas?? Well, I did!) to cut out dozens of vinyl flowers...

...and I randomly placed them in a cascade across the top and down the front of the dresser.

I liked it. I thought about leaving it like that...but in order to protect the vinyl, I would have had to have tried the polyacrylic again. THAT I was not willing to do!

So using a metallic white acrylic paint, I carefully painted in all of the little vinyl stickers...38 of them, to be exact! It was cold in the garage at 10 o'clock at night. But it was quiet!

The result was a cascade of lovely, shimmery, barely-there flowers.

The "bluer" pictures were taken with the flash on. Those show the flowers better, but it makes the dresser look brighter than it is.




As you may have noticed, I used the original hardware, but I sprayed it all silver. It was missing two of the tiny knobs, so I used two cute blue flower pulls from Hobby Lobby.


I gave up on the polyacrylic idea completely, and, for the first time, tried furniture wax. That was an epic adventure in and of itself! But after many, many, many applications and LOTS of rubbing, I am very pleased with the final outcome!

So there she is...38 Flowers. What do you think?