Chevron - not just a place you get gas!

My friend Amy called me the other day and said she had decided to paint a chevron pattern on one wall of her daughters bedroom, and asked would I help.  I said, sure, sounds like fun!  I arrived at Amy's house at 9 a.m. Friday morning ready to paint!  Coincidentally we had on matching outfits - pink shirts and jean shorts!  I took it as a good sign that we would work in sync all day.  We pretty much did too.  Turns out we are both mathmatically challenged.  Believe it or not, there is a ton of measuring and dividing to do when mapping out a chevron pattern.  We found an article on the internet that made it sound "easy breezy", but these people were clearly rocket scientists! 

After measuring the width and height of the wall and dividing them by three (don't ask me why we picked three, I guess that odd number rule of decorating thing. Whatever, It seemed right at the time.) we started measuring out from the center and placing dots along the wall.  The rocket scientists said all we'd have to do is get our blue painters tape and start connecting the dots to make the zig-zags.  Why what could be easier than that I said!  It should have been easy, but it was not.  Nothing was turning out right.  We ended up ripping off all the tape and starting over. 

The rocket scientists also didn't remind us about the whole taping on the inside of the stripe on one row and on the outside on the other.  Makes perfect sense now, but when you are standing on a cabinet, nose to nose with the wall and looking up at the stripes it was hard to tell.  Finally we made a paper template and basically drew the pattern on the wall and then added the tape. 

We used a magic eraser sponge to get off any pencil marks and then we started painting.  The painting was the easy part. 

We finished the wall at 10 p.m. -  ELEVEN HOURS after we started, but look how cool it turned out! 

It's not perfect.  The paint seeped under the tape in some spots and there is one spot where we taped wrong, but both of those problems are easy fixes.  The important thing is that Amy's teenage daughter loves it.  That is totally worth the crick in my neck I woke up with today!

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She's a Real Looker!

I am so excited y'all!  I finally finished the ugly chair and she turned out to be a real looker! I am thrilled with how she turned out, especially since this was my first time ever upholstering anything!  She is not perfect by any stretch - there are some things about the paint finish I might go back and tweak, and the seat cushion is not as perfect as it could be, but all in all, I love her!

Remember how she used to look?

Well look at her now!

I ended up using the white gimp to trim out the chair and I love how it looks!  Thanks for the inspiration Miss Mustard Seed 

And don't you just love the monogram!  I think it really makes the chair special.  If you haven't made anything using a painters drop cloth, you really should give it a try.  I love the texture and the color of it.  I even had a little left over that I'm going to use to make a throw pillow.

I learned so much in recovering this chair.  The first thing I learned is that I did not take nearly enough pictures of the before and the during.  You might think you'll remember how things looked, but trust me, you won't.  I'm pretty sure that I did not do the back of my chair how the original was done, but I will never know, because I didn't take a picture of it.  The hardest part of the entire chair was the part you don't even see - the seat bottom under the cushion!  Trying to work around the chair arms and legs was a real bear, but I worked it out and am pleased with the results. 

Now on to the next project!

Ugly Chair #2

There isn't a single thing I like about this chair. The shape is blah, the fabric is dated, it doesn't go with anything in my house.  In fact, I'm not even sure where we got this chair.  I think The Hubs brought it home one day from who knows where!  It sits in my sons room and is usually covered in laundry.  He leaves for college in a couple of weeks, so I will wait until he is gone before I confiscate his chair.  I might do something fun with it like covering it in Georgia Bulldog fabric!  Hmmm.... we'll see.

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The Ugly Chair

Well, here we go. Time to tackle the... UGLY CHAIR! I began the "un-upholstering" of the Ugly Chair one bright sunny morning and 1 million staples later I finished on one hot-as-all-get-out afternoon! Let me tell y'all, that fabric and trim was on good! My poor hand was so sore that my fingers couldn't move from their death-grip-on-the-pliers position! I'll be honest, I began to wonder what I had gotten myself into, but after some thought, and some Motrin, and a big glass of sweet tea, I decided I could do this thing! Here are a few pictures of the process. Here is Ugly Chair prior to the un-upholstering.

The fabric is dreadful and the wood finish is from the "I've got geese in neckerchiefs in my kitchen" era, but I've always loved the shape, so I believe there is great potential here. I'll admit, while I was pulling off the fabric I was secretly praying that someone had used this chair to hide their life savings, but instead I found an ice pop wrapper, what is possibly "droppings" of some sort and a dime.

I added the dime to my laundry room All Monies Found in the Washer/Dryer Become Mama's piggy bank and got back to work on Ol' Ugly. Here she is after I stripped the fabric and trim off (except I forgot to take it off the arm rest thingies until after the picture was taken).

The next step was dealing with the wood. I decided after reading many a blog that I would paint that baby white. I've been reading lots of good things about Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint here and I am definitely going to order some for my next project, but I was impatient and decided while I was at Home Depot I'd just grab a couple cans of Rust-oleum Painters Touch in Satin heirloom white. The can said it gave 2x coverage and was ideal for wood, metal, wicker and more! SOLD!

Before I began painting I lightly sanded the wood with a sanding block I had on hand, then wiped it down to remove the dust.  Now, the key to looking good while spray painting is to use pretty pink plastic party table clothes as drop clothes! haha  Actually I was just using what I had left from a baby shower I threw a while back and since they were cheap and I don't know of any other baby showers I'll be hosting anytime soon I decided to use them.  That and I didn't want to run back to the store to buy a drop cloth!

And here she is all painted.

This last picture is a little blurry, but you can see how I sanded some of the paint off to give it a worn look.  That's right, old is the new new!

I'm so happy with how the paint finish turned out. I sanded around the edges to give it a distressed look, wiped it down to remove any dust and then applied a clear wax to seal it. I've got a long way to go, but my ugly chair is starting to look pretty again! Stay tuned for my adventures in covering double welt cording! YIKES!