Background

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Awake at last and a chair makeover

It is spring. I'm back, baby, ready to post again. Watch out, the big grumpy bear is awake, lol.

I'm touched that my fellow bloggers left me such lovely comments when I posted about my lack of inspiration due to the fact that I was "hibernating". It's not that I was depressed or anything, but I think I do go through a down time after Christmas. I always think because it's such a quiet time of year, here's my chance to get caught up on all sorts of things and finally work on all sorts of projects, but my body has other plans for me. I sleep. A lot. And I putter around with no real direction. It doesn't help that I tend to have low iron.

Anyway, I'm pushing the clouds away and getting back in the swing of things. The blogosphere has been abuzz with talks of the famous Annie Sloan Chalk Paint and I was so inspired by the lovely makeovers I have seen done with it that I broke down and ordered 4 colours from Piorra Maison, one of the blogs I follow. Catherine, whose blog it is, is following her dream and opened a lovely store in Montreal and also became a stockist for Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. I wish I lived closer so I could visit her store, but I can at least order the paint from her, so that's what I did. I have started a few makeover projects with it that I will be showing you in the next little while.

And now let me tell you about this project years in the making that I finally finished.

Here in our city, we have this wonderful bulk pickup programme. You can put out any bulky item you want to get rid of by the curb 3 or 4 days before the city pickup and people can drive by and help themselves and this avoids having a lot of items end up in the landfill.

I have a thing for second hand furniture, particularly for chairs. When I see them left by the curb (or in a thrift store), I want to save them. no matter how sad looking they are. For a while, I was hoarding chairs and I finally just had to give in to my husband's pleas and resurrender some of them to the curb side. Luckily they were all picked up again.

This particular chair I found about 5 years ago. A lot of people hold a garage sale before a bulk pickup day and whatever doesn't get picked up goes to the curb. I had driven by this garage sale on my way somewhere and had seen this chair. Didn't have time to stop. I told myself that by the time I drove back, if it was still there, I would buy it. Well, even better than that, by the time I did drive back, the sale was over and the chair had been left at the curb. Free for the taking.


As you can see, it seemed it had been used as an art project by a toddler.

I sanded it down, primed it and painted it in Simply White by Benjamin Moore. I printed out the word "Sit" on paper and traced the word on the chair using graphite paper. I then painted the word black with craft acrylic paint and I sprayed several coats of zero gloss varnish on the seat to protect it.









It is now a whimsical chair that invites you to sit and pause a while!

Linking up to:


beforeAndAfterButton%255B8%255D.gif



adiamondinthestuff.blogspot.com.png





8 comments:

  1. Hello Nicole, Wow, I had no idea it was you! So so happy you bought some paint. Maybe some day we will meet. I drive by Burlington on my way to TO. Who knows??? Thanks for that wonderful mention.:)
    take care and happy painting. If you have any questions about the paint please call me. The wax is the tricky part, easy but tricky.

    Caroline

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ok, you must have a name. I can't keep calling you Tout de rien. I need a name ; )
    I've heard about this paint. So... you LOVED it??
    Poor chair, when I first saw it I thought you were testing different colours, but then I saw the pretty white and your nice "sit" graphic. I do love it. It actually would have been good for my kids to have that kind of TIME OUT chair, lol.
    I was going to go to T.O. this weekend, but I opted out to go to Québec City the following weekend for my 56th birthday.
    We are having a nice day today, but it's still only 4 out. They say it's suppose to go up to 12 wow oh WOW.
    Have a great day... what ever your name is , lol.
    A bientôt
    Claudette
    xoxoxoxo

    ReplyDelete
  3. The chair looks marvelous-following you from TDC-stop by for a visit!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I love this--how creative with the word. I will have to steal this idea:)

    ReplyDelete
  5. What a sweet idea for a chair! So simple, yet cute & unique!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Ah ha!! It's Nicole.
    Bonjour Nicole.
    Happy weekend. I think spring is in its way.
    xoxo

    ReplyDelete
  7. Love the chair. Amazing what time and paint can do!
    Teresa
    xoxo

    ReplyDelete
  8. how great are the white chairs?
    and the word SIT in blk & wht.

    love 'em!!!

    xx

    ReplyDelete