Wicker Chair Makeover

There's inspiration behind every makeover.  In this case, there's a story.  

When our cat was sick a few months back she started to pee on the Pottery Barn area rug in our basement.  It started to become a  habit, and after a while, I was literally using my Bissell Spotbot several times a day.  The vet suggested that we add a litter box near the area rug, which has completely eliminated the problem.  Although it has fixed the problem, it created a decorating dilemma.  

Having a litter box in the corner of the room is not exactly the look I was going for.

Before the litter box, I used to have a small ottoman in the corner.  That wasn't going to work.  I knew I needed something bigger, but really didn't want to go and buy another piece of furniture.  Then I remembered that we had a white wicker chair up in the attic.  It has been up there for more than ten years and I really couldn't remember exactly what it looked like and I also wasn't sure of it's exact dimensions, but it was worth a try.  

I have no idea how we got this chair up in the attic in the first place.  It was next to impossible to get it out of the attic.  It didn't fit through the opening.  We literally had to push it out scraping up the legs a bit, which didn't matter since I would be painting it.  It took a little bit of vision, but I could see that it would be so much nicer if I painted it a darker color.

Image

This Pottery Barn wicker chair was the look I was going for.

My chair has similar lines, and since I already owned it, it was worth trying to spray it.

Last week we had one warm day - well not exactly balmy (48 degrees), but warm enough to spray paint (especially since the chances of it being that warm again probably won't happen again until April.  This is what it looked like after one coat of Rustoleum Leather Brown.

It took three coats total to cover all of the white.  Then I dry-brushed on a combination of black and grey paint to give it some dimension.  

That white splotch you see on the top right is just the light hitting it from above.  The yellow pillow is from Pottery Barn.  I recovered the foam in fabric I already had making a box cushion cover.  Stop back tomorrow for a full tutorial.  

One more thing - we must discuss the new lampshade for this table lamp.  I picked it up at Pottery Barn when I bought the pillow and it is the perfect color for the lamp that I painted a while back with AS chalk paint in Duck Egg. 

Here is the lampshade before.  I love this brown silk shade.  However, it is about an inch or so wider than the table top on the lamp, and in person it doesn't look right.

Also, when I moved the lamp to the other side of the room, the brown shade really was just too big and blocked the picture behind it.  The new lampshade is a better size - I think.

What do you think?  I'd love to hear your opinion.

-Judy

The Quest for the Perfect Chair

You know, I am often on a quest for one thing or another.  This time it was my parents who were on a quest ... a quest for the perfect chair.

Chair from Ethan Allen

They needed a petite, upholstered chair.  Not so easy to find.  They loved the Giselle Chair from Ethan Allen.  The chair starts at $1029....however, by the time they were done picking fabric and tax and delivery the final price would be $1650.  So as gorgeous as the chair was, it didn't seem reasonable to spend that much money on one chair.  

Yesterday I stopped by Home Goods.  I did a walk through and didn't find any chairs that would work for my parents (and I also didn't find anything for myself - :( ).  I started to drive away when I saw my parents pull into the Home Goods parking lot.  I turned around and honked my horn at them.  No reaction (hello, you would think there would be some reaction).  My dad dropped my mom off at the door (it was snowing here yesterday) and I finally got her attention.  I told her I didn't see anything inside.  I decided to follow my father to his spot to say hello.  While I talked to my dad my mom called his cell to say she found the perfect chair.  What???  This I had to see.  I parked and went inside to see what she could have possibly seen...I was just in there.  Sure enough, there was the perfect size, shape and color chair...next to three chairs I did see (how did I miss this one?).  That combined with the fact that my mom thought it must be fate that I was there since I have a mini-van that could fit the chair...they bought it...for $300.  Not that $300 is cheap, but it is 1/5 of the cost of what the other chair would have been.  

Like I said, the chair is the right dimensions, is well made, is comfortable and coordinates perfectly with their decor.  What more could they ask for?   I took photos using my father's camera - so I had a little trouble getting the lighting perfect and using a camera I was not familiar with.  

The chair fabric is a small houndstooth pattern in a grey/blue and white.  This work very well with the toile they have on the duvet, bench and window treatments in their bedroom.

I will be making them a small pillow for the back of the chair in the next few days.  They were going to pick out the fabric after I left them.  Probably something in a navy color.  I will be sure to post about it.

You can see that it coordinates perfectly with their decor.  Their room is done in blue and white with some navy accents.  I love their room (although, as my parents are aware,  I am not a huge fan of the white formica furniture - however, it does seem to disappear into the background because everything else is beautiful).  

I think I may love the chair as much or more than my parents do.  

Instead of a headboard, they have three navy euro pillows and two pictures.  

My father made the cornice boards by making boxes out of wood and then applied textured wallpaper and painted it the same color as the wall.  

Apparently, yesterday morning my mom had told my father that this was the day she was going to find the chair.  Weird how that worked out.  

Don't forget my Swing into Spring party is still going on.  You can click here to join in the fun.  Hope to see you there.

-Judy

Finishing Touches

This weekend my goal was to finish the mudroom.  It was basically done, but there were some finishing touches still needed.

For starters, I spent much of the weekend looking for a new runner for the mudroom.  I searched tons of internet sites and looked in every local store I could think of.  I had already checked in Target, however we have four different Targets in our immediate area, so I decided to check a different one...and there it was, the perfect area rug...and it came in a runner!!  It had all the right colors, plus it wasn't too light (remember 90% of my guests enter through my side door - go figure) and it wasn't too dark.

Another bonus, the price was better than anything else I had seen that would have worked.  It was $89.99 (certainly not cheap), but it's a real wool rug.  I can attest to how heavy it is...I carried it all through the mall after buying it.

The next thing I needed was a bench.  I went to Lowe's to buy the materials to make a bench.  However, once I gathered everything I needed including the legs, the wood top, the piece to attach the legs, the foam, the batting, the fabric and the nail head trim - it was going to cost close to $100.  So I decided to go home and shop my home.  That's what I literally did - I walked around my house seeing if there was anything I had that I could either make into a bench or that would work.

I found these two benches in my finished basement under a parsons table I have at the foot of the staircase.  Nobody, and I really mean nobody, ever sits on these.  These are old - we bought them for our first apartment 18 years ago.  I had recovered the cushions a few years back.  The fabric works perfectly in the new mudroom.  They are also very petite - measuring only 20" x 14" each for a total of about 42" x 14" when they are put together.  Our mudroom is not very wide, so 14" is just perfect.  Most benches are 17" or larger which was why I was going to make a custom bench.  These will work so well, and  since they were already in the house, they won't effect the bottom line cost of this project.

The last thing I needed was some decorative hooks.  I found these at Lowe's.  They weren't in the regular hook department...they were in the closet aisle.  I love them.

Using blue tape, I tried several different configurations.  First I tried an even distribution throughout the wall of board and batten.  My concern was it seemed sort of dangerous to have a hook right above the benches as well as it being totally impractical - no one is going to hang their coat on the hook if it's going to get in the way of the bench, right?

So I ultimately decided on four in a row, centered between the battens, closest to the side door.  Now jackets can be hung without any interference.

Here it is...the completed mudroom.  You can go here to see where this whole renovation began.  I'm thrilled with the outcome.  Let me know what you think of all the finishing touches.  I always love and appreciate your comments.

-Judy

10 Year Old Girls Room

I went to the Ethan Allen sale last week.  I had gone looking for a three drawer from their Maison collection.  Unfortunately they didn't have it.  What they did have was this beauty:

It is the perfect start to my daughter's room.  It's sitting in my living room while I start transform my daughter's room.

This is my daughter's room before:

I had sponge painted the walls over ten years ago and had the picket fence border.  The border was not wallpaper.  It was a product that you held against the wall and put a damp sponge on.  It was kind of like the temporary tattoos you put on your kids.  It looked just like it was hand painted.  I had kept the packaging so that when the day came for me to change it I would know how.  It said simply to paint over it when you were ready to redecorate.

So bright and early yesterday morning I emptied the room of everything except for the bed which I left in the center of the room...so it wasn't in my way.

I patched the many holes in the walls left from the picture hangers, drapery rods etc.  I then sanded and thought I was good to go.

I realized right away that paint alone was not going to cover the border (even thought I had bought paint with primer).  So I put two coats of primer over the border and sponge paint.  Then I painted two coats of the Benjamin Moore Whispering Spring on three of the walls, leaving the window wall for an accent wall.  After the two coats of primer and then two coats of paint, I could still see the border.  I continued to paint more coats of paint only over the border area.  I painted an additional three or four coats of paint and the border still showed through.  I decided to paint two more coats of primer over the border and then two more coats of paint.  Can you believe it...the border still shows through - I can still see a pink cast.

At this point, frustrated and tired,  I moved on to the accent wall.  I painted the accent wall Restoration Hardware Petal Pink (which I had left over from my daughter's bathroom).   The pink paint covered the border in one coat (I guess since it is pink??).  For this feature wall, I decided I wanted it to be stenciled.  The overall plan for the room is shabby chic/romantic/country french all rolled together.

I started by centering the stencil in the center of the wall and worked my way to the right first.

I continued in the same way working my way to the right and then to the left.  With a stencil you are supposed to line up the dots each time.  Not so easy as the stencil gets more and more filled with paint.  This was my first time stenciling such a large area.

I worked until 10:30 last night (I had begun work on the room at 8am).  The feature wall came out beautiful (it took four hours) - I will show it to you when all four walls are complete.  The other three walls I need to deal with this morning.  I will be calling my local paint store to find out what I can do to cover this border.  Otherwise I will need to come up with a plan B.   I can't wait to show you the finished room.

Let me know what you think so far...and if you have any suggestions as to how to cover the painted border when 6 coats of primer and 6 coats of paint hasn't worked so far.

-Judy

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