Old chair, new chair

It has been pointed out to me, quite correctly, that I'm slacking in updating my blog. A huge thank you to Darnell for the kick up the backside that I needed! Mwah!

Let me show you my latest project. I've been on an Annie Sloan painting class to update our furniture. Amongst other things, we learned on the course how to "age" furniture by crackling the paint and rubbing with dark wax. We also painted two layers of different coloured paints and sanded some of the top layer off so that the older colour showed through. Not that I wanted any of that, I just wanted some pretty chalky coloured paint that you can use without sanding first. 'Cos I'm lazy that way. And they taught us how to use it for that too.

I began with an old kitchen chair that was in my bedroom when I was a child, and which my Mum last painted with a colour called Frascati (I remember the colour, not the manufacturer) to match my wardrobe when I was about 8. I chose that chair because it wouldn't matter much if I got things wrong. Well ironically, when I looked at it, it was already showing two colours of paint, and had genuine dirty age crackles - I couldn't help wondering whether Juliet would actually let me paint it if she saw it!

See? Poor, tatty, grubby chair. Destined to go in our new conservatory. With its bare skirting boards. See where this is going? ;-)

Yup, I did the skirting boards too.

Pretty isn't it? It's called Duck Egg Blue. I have a chest of drawers and a wardrobe to do too, but don't hold your breath. I need a serious amount of courage to tackle those. I think the scariest part is the thought of emptying them out, finding new homes for the contents, and getting them upstairs.

Meanwhile, back to the paper-crafting. That's a lot quicker and cleaner.