Decorated dining chair

Most of my dining chairs are at least second hand basic folding Ikea chairs, but when I moved I bought a single decent chair with the intention of eventually having a fun and mismatched set of seating. I also intended to decorate the chair and brighten up the plain wood, and on the last bank holiday I started the transformation. It’s taken until now to get it finished and varnished but it’s definitely more fun now!

The boring ‘before’ chair

And the final result!

The colours were chosen to match the pink and red in a nice decoupage paper I had, and the colours and styling were designed to go with the dining table I painted a while ago, with metallic cross bars and colour on the bottom of the legs. The colours are called ‘coral crush’ and ‘summer pudding’ (which was more crimson than expected) – paint colours have such wonderful names! There’s also a coat of varnish to protect the paper and colours.

I just walked back into my kitchen and saw the chair sitting in the sunlight and thought ‘oooh look at that!’ so I think the effort was worth it! Next on the decorating list: the wooden stand my printer sits on – I already have the paint and paper ready and waiting 🙂

Upcycled coffee table

I got this coffee table from the BHF furniture charity shop a couple of weeks ago. I got a few funny looks carrying it home, but I’ve been really wanting something to put my drinks on while I lounge on the sofa…

The original plan was for a shabby chic sanded corners look, but of course I got the wrong paint and it looked terrible when I tried so it’s now just a plain white. All I really did in the end was paint it, but the table was so knocked around before that it didn’t take much to improve it. And with the corners being battered, sanding them down to show an extra colour really just showed the dents! It looks bright and clean now so I’m not too disappointed, and my real focus was the top anyway.

 

I’ve been looking for a while for a coffee table with a glass top to display my growing stamp collection (14 years of pen friends and a year of Postcrossing adds up to a lot of stamps!). I didn’t realise until I got home that the glass is smoked but it works 🙂 There are stamps from 46 different countries on there, all except for 2 that I’ve received myself (Fiji and the old Isle of Man stamp if you’re interested). They’re lightly stuck on to a piece of picture mounting board cut to shape using the glass as a template. It should be easy to change them around when I get any particularly nice new stamps arrive.

I’ve already added some books to the shelf, but I’m going to try not to dump too much stuff on it, it took a long time to sort out the best stamps and how to display them!

Decorated bedside drawers

I’m on a roll! Soon I hope to have brightened up all of my bedroom furniture – but I started with the smallest bit 🙂 The drawers came from my Dad who didn’t have space for them after moving house. They’re a basic fairly attractive Ikea design, but with magnolia walls I’m feeling the need to add some colour… I gave the drawers a bit of a wipe, then painted the top. I thought about painting all of it but decided not to.

                    

I’m aiming for a soft green and bird themed sort of room, and I found some great antique style bird print wrapping paper. I measured off the drawers and the gaps in between and nearly managed to cut the papers so that the print lines up (but don’t look too closely!) I also cut out a set of birds on a branch and decorated the top. I have a habit of putting things on any available surface so the top may not be visible for long! The varnish made the paint and paper look a bit darker, but it’s now solidly protected from night time water spills and the water that seems to come through the tv aerial when it rains…

And the bedside table in use! It’s not very visible tucked into the corner, but it’s nice to have more colour and pattern around.
 

Dining table renovation

Me and my brother moved house at about the same time, so I ended up with his dining set – an (at least) 3rd hand folding table, and some basic folding Ikea chairs. All good free stuff, but I’d had vague daydreams of a bright dining room with colourful mismatched furniture, big windows…maybe one day 🙂

Anyway, I decided to brighten it all up a bit. First task was cleaning the table, the water went brown and it took several goes to get the worst off – I’m not sure this table had ever been properly cleaned!

To get rid of the worst of the dirt and scratches, I decided to sand the top and some of the legs. It’s a nice wood but sanding was hard work.

Painting the whole table would have been too much, so I decided to just paint the bottom of the legs. I measured up to a good height and used masking tape to mark the areas that I was planning to paint, and to give the paint a neat edge. It took a couple of coats to get it looking good. I used pale pink on the feet, and a metallic paint on the cross-bar because I liked the colour 🙂

To brighten up the top I stuck flowery paper to the central panel, then I dragged it outside and used a spray varnish to coat it all. It could probably do with a thicker coat at some point, but the varnish ran out…

And the finished result! Much more fun, and brightens up my little dining corner. I spray-painted a chair too for a bit more colour – it’s a bit patchy but much more colourful!