Shabby Chic Stool

I was pleased to find this little cutie recently...

My husband kindly picked it up for me (he does that alot, bless him....actually as an aside, he picked up four dining chairs for me a week ago and they are still in the back of his car, oops, lol)...anyway, hubby took this stool straight to the upholster for me, so I didn't actually see it till the makeover was complete.  I asked hubby, when he came home after picking it up and dropping it off, what it was like (sometimes hard to tell from the pictures...I've learnt that the hard way more than once!)  He said 'oh...it's ok'....in a way that really said 'that stool is awful and I have no idea why anyone in their right mind would look twice at it, let alone buy it'.  

This is the guy that happily lets me indulge my creative visions, with the faith that I know what I am doing, and it will all come out good in the end.  I really couldn't see how that sweet little stool could have been that bad....

And it wasn't.  

Even Mr Upholsterer Man said that he thought it came up really well, and he is as far from a frilly sort of a shabby chic fan as you can imagine.

So it has a brand new oilcloth seat pad, new padding, and new rubber feet.  I have scrubbed the frame clean but I am still deciding whether to give it a fresh coat of Rustoleum Universal Satin White...

should I or shouldn't I???

As for hubby, he hasn't seen the finished article yet, so who cares knows what he thinks of it!?

xx Karen

Some more kitchen step stools

I don't think I took before photos of one of these ones, but it was pretty sad; it didn't even have a lid or a hinge, but fortunately it was nothing my magic upholsterer man couldn't fix!  This one had chunks of wood holding the rubber on the steps on...in fact the photo doesn't do it worse enough justice.  Oh well...

The lid on the one above, that actually had a lid, was all wrong, it just looked too wide and flat for the size of the stool frame, so I had Mr Fixit chop it down, and add some padding for height, to give it a better overall scale.

The step rubber and white feet are all new.

xx Karen

Beachy Kids Step Stool

A while ago I picked up this little solid rimu stool, in response to a client asking me if I painted stools suitable for children to reach the bathroom sink.  Funnily enough, the only one I had done was for my own children, it hadn't occurred to me to paint them for others!  This stool didn't suit the client so I went ahead and painted it in my vision. This is what it looked like when I purchased it:

Firstly, it was actually too tall to use as a kids step stool, so I chopped about 10cm off each leg.  Luckily, it sat level after the first 4 cuts!

Here it is with the sealer coat on...see how it is shorter, the side braces are now closer to the floor.

Waiting for the paint to dry....before giving it the super-distressed treatment! 

Previously I have done all my distressing by hand but I been wanting to give it a go with my mouse sander, and chose this project to experiment on, since it was small, it wasn't a big investment, it had lots of detail, and in my vision for a beachy feel, super-distressed would be perfect.

 I have to say, it was much quicker and easier than doing it by hand, and I love how it turned out...

And now, for some bathroom shots...

Sorry about the shadows :)

Hopefully the cute feet with half of my genes will make up for my lack of photography skills ;)

 

Or some Spring blossoms, maybe?

I am particularly fond of duck egg blue...the backdrop in this shot is my kitchen :)

Happy Spring, to those of us down the bottom half of the world!

I am sharing this at Cassie's party, and 

xx Karen

Some chairs and stools made over

A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to score these...

 I had bid on them on our online auction site, but forgot to watch the auction close and missed out.  The winning bidder didn't want them so they seller offered them to me and I was happy to take them.  The covers were pretty tragic but the chrome was in excellent condition.

I picked them up from my wonderful upholster on Friday and here they are now - the two floral stools have been done to order, the third I did in red dotty which is always popular.  I chose to do the chairs in taupe dotty oilcloth and I have plans in progress for a table to make it a full suite...watch this space! 

The taupe dotty oilcloth reminds me of the bar stools in Sarah's House

Her staging is clearly better than mine, lol.

I am really pleased with how these turned out and can't wait to finish the table to see how it all looks together!

XX Karen

Sorry it has been a bit quiet here lately...

First of all, I was busy getting ready to celebrate this little fellow starting out as this:

then turning into this:

then this:

then this:

and now, in what seems like no time at all my sweet little boy turned 4 years old:

(As for me, I seemed to be having a good hair day on his first and third birthdays...the second and fourth could have been better....lol).

Then, just as I was ready to get stuck into some painting, this happened:

Christchurch, New Zealand, earthquake, 7.1 magnitude, 4 September 2010

Painting furniture didn't seem so important any more since some people no longer had houses that were safe to live in, let alone their furniture :(  Thankfully, no lives have been lost - a real miracle given the devastation this has caused our city.  Schools and preschools were shut all of last week so they could be checked for safety....then checked again after the seemingly never-ending aftershocks (that still haven't stopped!). That turned out to be a blessing, so we could tell our kids they couldn't go to school because it was shut, rather than Mummy is terrified and doesn't want to let you out of her sight...

But, already, it is Monday afternoon, a new week, and we have our 'first' day back at school done and dusted.  Life in our part of the world seems to be slowly coming back to a new sort of normal, for those of us that are lucky enough to have our homes intact, at least.

This is far from over, but still I have already learned that this was a reminder that I have alot to be grateful for, and in particular I have learnt how comforting and welcome a 'normal' day is, and I don't think I will ever complain about having a 'groundhog day' ever ever again!

And since this blog is about furniture projects, I will have some to share, soon, I promise...so while it still seems a little trivial, painting is what I do, it keeps me sane, and I owe it to my kids to remain so :)

xx Karen