Discarded Jewel Becomes Tiffany Star (and Paris on the Brain)

I'm obsessed with chairs. Particularly when they're left at the curb. I feel it's my mission in life to save them.

So when I saw this little gem, of course, she had to come home. 

(Why do I make chairs girls? It has to be those curvy legs I think. 

If it was a big fat recliner, then it would definitely be a boy, don't you think?)

My daughter said this chair was sick. Which, in her generation's lingo, is a good thing.

Lots of appeal, that's for sure.

The seat was well upholstered, but it didn't have a trim. I'm not quite into that Restoration Hardware deconstructed look at this point, which is what it reminded me of. Plus the colour of the fabric was somewhat faded and sported some dirt marks.

 Loved the silver and although you can't tell in the picture, it was really, really badly painted. It had been spray painted, but not very well and there were drips all over which had to be sanded down.

I painted the seat (yes, I painted the fabric!) with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Duck Egg. The paint went on amazingly well. It covered perfectly with one coat, but I put two coats on anyway for durability. I then waxed it and buffed it. It looked amazing! 

I hot glued on a silver braid trim on that unfinished edge.

I then painted the frame with ASCP French Linen, but I really was not feeling it. I missed the silver.

I got a little jar of Martha Stewart liquid silver gilding and applied it. I can't believe how far that stuff goes! It's a tiny pot, maybe slightly bigger than a bottle of nail polish and I did the whole chair and still have nearly half the pot left!

I'm thrilled with the results. The silver contrasts beautifully with the Duck Egg and it definitely has a Tiffany appeal to it.

I have to say that I was greatly inspired by Amy's chair at Maison Decor, although her  blue is closer to the true Tiffany blue because it is a custom mixed colour she created.

I'm so amazed at how well the seat turned out with the ASCP! The wax gives it a beautiful sheen.

Sterling darling.

It's so elegant, I'm still debating whether or not I should keep it or sell it!

*****

This Friday, I get to realize one of my biggest dreams. You see that beautiful grand dame on the left side of my blog, Miss Eiffel? Well, I will finally get to meet her in person. Yes, my hubby and I are flying out to Paris for two glorious weeks. Two. Weeks. I'm so thrilled. Tick one off the old bucket list! I am planning on taking a gazillion pictures, I have even bought an extra SD card for the camera. I will definitely post some pictures. À bientôt!!


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Miss Mustard Seed's Furniture Feature Friday 2805 Potpourri Friday no. 35

"Be Our Guest" Candlestick Redo

Good morning! They have a heat warning in effect today in our city, so the air conditioning is going on! Not complaining though, I'll take this anytime over snow and the cold! I think tonight may be a gazpacho night, a very delicious and refreshing Spanish soup that's perfect on a hot day. We usually have it with a baguette and that's our meal.

My project today is an Annie Sloan candlestick makeover.

In my last post I mentioned a garage sale loot I acquired recently for $3. Among these items was this sad looking wood candlestick.

It was worn out looking, dusty, dirty and full of wax. I removed the wax, cleaned it and sanded it down.

Out came the Annie Sloan Old Ocre. This was my first project with that colour, but it certainly won't be my last. I love its aged look.

I put on two coats, then a coat of clear wax. I buffed it and distressed it, then applied the dark wax, also my first time using this product. Another buffing and voilà!!

My daughter says he looks like Lumière from Beauty and the Beast!

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Breakfast with Annie Sloan and her Wonderful Chalk Paint

I have been a furniture rescuer for a long time. I pick up chairs and other things curb side. Our city has bulk pickup days every month where you can put out big items like couches, etc. It is not rare to see nice items that are just slightly scratched and that people put out because they are tired of them. They just need a little TLC. I also scour thrift stores and garage sales in search of that perfect item to make over. I don't see an old, decrepit thing, I see the potential to remake it into something scrumptious.

My husband cringes but he lets me roll with it. We'll be celebrating our 25th anniversary shortly, and I thank him for his infinite patience. (I did let him have his midlife crisis at 50 when he bought a Corvette, his dream car. He loves that car. I call it The Precious.)

But I digress. I am always searching blogs and websites for inspiration and that is how I discovered Annie Sloan. No she's not a cowgirl from the Wild West, even though her name sounds like it. Annie Get your Gun. Annie the Sloan Ranger. Annie Oaks Sloan.

She's a British lady who created this wonderful chalk paint. This paint is perfect for imperfect people. It is very forgiving. You just slap it on, you don't need to sand or prime. And you can give furniture the most beautiful historical look, especially when you distress it and use the dark wax to give it an well-aged, patinaed look.

After reading so much about this wonderful paint, I decided to try it. I ordered a couple of quarts from Piorra Maison in Montreal. Tried it, loved it and have since ordered more.

I recently acquired a good loot at a garage sale. For a whole $3, I got 4 old frames, a very chippy child's rocking chair in pieces, a waxy, messy looking wood candlestick and this breakfast tray.

Love the rattan edge!

While it had a nice vintage look to it, I thought it was too vintagey. In a dirty way.

The legs were very wobbly too.

So, I cleaned it, glued back the loose legs and gave it a couple of coats of ASCP Paris Grey. Then, inspired by its original mauvy colour, I traced this antique looking French ad graphic I downloaded from The Graphics Fairy and went over it with a raspberry, mauvy acrylic paint. Gave it a coat of clear wax, sanded it down to distress it and went over it with the dark wax and the clear wax.

The final step was a good buffing and here she is in all her glory, ready to grace someone's lap with a lovely breakfast.

I need to find a place to sell my stuff. If only to support my habit. I probably also need a space somewhere to store all this stuff. So that I don't paint in the garage so close to The Precious. I hate to think about what would happen if paint got on The Precious. We might NOT be celebrating another 25 years, lol!


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Miss Mustard Seed's Furniture Feature Friday

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!

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