All posts tagged: Furniture make-overs

Chair upcycling

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In previous posts I have mentioned having a plan to spruce up our playroom / dining room.  Well, it had stalled for a while.  The next thing on my list to tackle was getting an extending dining table and some chairs.  The table needed to start off small enough not to get in the way when the room was in play-room mode, but extend to seat all the extended family comfortably.  I had seen something I wanted about 18 months ago, but it was expensive, so I decided to try to get something similar on eBay, and use it as an up cycling project.  After nearly a year and a half of monitoring eBay for second hand chairs and tables close to home, I finally got lucky. Someone was selling fifty chairs reclaimed from a closed-down restaurant, that were identical in shape to the ones I wanted. I managed to snap up eight of them for £20 each.  The only difference was that they were dark-stained wood and had a plasticky fake-wicker seat pad that had seen …

Mantel Makeover – Part Two

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In Mantel Makeover – Part One I shared the story of how I thought I had really messed up renovating our playroom mantelpiece; and promised to show you the final outcome in Part Two. Where did I get to? … Ah yes, the Duck Egg Blue was an improvement on the disastrous Florence, but there was still something Not Quite Right. The finish looked a bit too uniform, which jarred against the old and imperfect tiles. It needed to look a little more lived-in, so, after applying a coat of wax, I gave some of the edges a light sand, focusing on the areas that would have become bumped, battered and worn with use over time; and on the bits of carving that would benefit from being highlighted. After that, it was starting to look much better! In fact, I dared to think it was looking (whisper it) quite nice.  In the areas that I had sanded, the initial coat of Florence, and even some of the original wood, was peeking through, which added depth and interest to the finish. It …

TV Bench Revamp

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After my minor success with the playroom furniture, I decided to embark on a slightly more substantial project – re-vamping an old TV stand into a bedside table for the Chief Stick Collector’s room. We have recently replaced our too-small and not particularly lovely TV stand with a fabulous painted cabinet (a successful eBay bargain!). So the old TV stand joined my list of spare bits of furniture waiting to be re-decorated and re-purposed. This is what it looked like. Nothing special and just a bit dull. But I had big plans for it. This is the Chief Stick Collector’s HQ. He is a big fan of all things vehicle-related. The chest of drawers next to his bed is an old one that I had as a child. It has been through several paint-jobs and numerous sets of handles over the years, and I have plans for its next incarnation. It will stay in Chief Stick Collector’s room, just not next to his bed. He finds it a bit too high, and he struggles to …

Breathing new life into Lätt

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Like many people with preschool-aged children, we are the proud owners of a very useful table and chairs for little people – the ubiquitous Lätt, from everyone’s favourite Swedish flat-packed furniture emporium.  After nearly three years of (ab)use from Chief Stick Collector and, latterly, Bird Girl, the lovely Lätt has started to look a little tired and unhappy. What it needed was an injection of joy, a splash of colour. Step forward my favourite new toy – Chalk Paint by Annie Sloan! Perfect for the slap-dash and the impatient amongst us – those who, when they decide they want to change something, want to do it NOW, and hang the preparation, priming and planning.  This paint was made for people like me, who just want to slap it on and get on with it.  For this little project I chose two colours ‘Provence’ – a bright turquoise – for the chairs; and ‘Duck Egg’ – a more muted blue-green – for the table. In truth, the choice of colours was an uncharacteristic act of preparation for a larger project on my wish-list of decorating tasks – painting the playroom mantelpiece …