All posts tagged: Interiors

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 …