Free Chairs are Good Chairs

Friends of Friends were moving and hubby was helping them move some stuff. They were going to a smaller place and had a bunch of stuff for the dump. He spied this chair and bought it home for me, it was a bit sorry in the beginning.

She sat around for a while as it had this stick on vinyl on the seat and I had no idea how to get it off. Once I got to her I sanded and cleaned and decided for a more rustic finish in case I could not get the seat perfectly flat.

Painted up in Annie Sloan Graphite and stencil in AS Pure White, she turned out lovely.

Wooden Printing Blocks

One of my more unique Friday Finds that I thought was worth sharing. I found these old hand carved wooden printing blocks. I will be doing some research into them as they are most unusual. Obviously once well used and made, aren't they amazing?

Aquamint - Current Favourite Colour

Don't you love it when you try a new colour and then seem to have a roll of wanting to do everything in it?
So true for vintage paint colour Aquamint, it is a soft neutral with just a hint of mint. I started off doing an old homemade rimu piece in it as a display cabinet for paint in the gallery. 

The starting place

All loaded up as our paint display

Aquamint Swatch

Then I came across another Hutch, this time pine and very battered and unloved at the Sallies. This also got the Aquamint treatment. Different woods and starting colours will always change the look of a piece. One was on raw wood and the other I painted over a horrible dark stain. Both now have their own unique hint of mint look.

Antique Market - a new favourite stencil too!

Check out that dark "before" stain

One Sideboard, Two Projects

We picked up this sideboard with excellent old coloured glass doors and not very excellent anything else. All of the handles were mismatched, the back piece was not fixed onto the base properly and the varnish was old and wearing off in places. 

In progress, painting the base, staining the top

She looks a lot prettier in this photo than what she was - photos can be deceiving, this was the purchasers photo

We decided to remove the back piece altogether but that left a gap at the back. Step in handy hubby, he took an old mirror strut we no longer required and cut it to size and fitted it to the back. I loved the old wood and sanded it all back to bare wood on the top.

One seriously shiny top

The top ended up with two coats of dark stain and a vintage wax top coat. The base was Vintage Paint in Bone China, a grey based white as I wanted to really make a feature of the gorgeous blue glass in the doors. I distressed her as she had a naturally timeworn look already and finished the body with vintage wax.

Original Hardware

The top piece is going to make me the perfect sign for the Gallery, the mirror is being made into a blackboard, the wood is being painted in Retro Blue ( my fav colour!) vintage paint and a stencil will go either side, more on that when it's finished.

Work in Progress for this sign

Wall Unit in Turquiose

I think Turquoise was the best colour for this piece. Before and Afters and completed with a Barleycorn Vintage wine stencil

Love my Blue & White!

After

Another custom mix Duck Egg Blue transformation

I love this custom mix Duck Egg Blue mix and as it has so much depth to the colour I really like to paint it on a piece with clean simple lines. This is an op shopped solid wood chest which had huge ugly yellow and silver plastic knobs on it originally! She was in excellent condition so only took a small amount of prep work, a smooth chalk paint job, subtle distressing and some clear wax to finish. The knobs got changed out for some tiny crystal ones.

Here is her beautiful before mugshot...she's the one hiding in the back

And a couple more after shots to make her feel better again