Firstly today, let me introduce you to Juliana who is doing two weeks work experience with I Restore Stuff this week. What a wonderful blessing she has been! If you saw my Facebook post this week, you’ll have seen this picture of her assembling an Ikea step stool for me.Juliana (1)  Juliana (2)

Advanced Workshop Opportunity:

I’ll be sending out info soon on an advanced workshop I’ll be offering where we get to make over one of these step stools after learning some Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint techniques and finishes. You will create a fantastic new look to this step stool and have a brand new piece of furniture to take home with you. If you’re interested in attending one of our workshops, make sure you have subscribed to this blog on the side panel, or email me at sharonhankins3@gmail.com.

Workshops are held in Heritage Park, QLD. (45 mins from Brisbane CBD)

Re-vamping a chair:

Now, here is just one of the many things we achieved today, as Juliana and I tackled a few pieces that had been on my waiting list.

red chair 5I forgot to take a proper “Before” pic, but here is the original chair complete with glossy white paint and red velvet seat:

red chair
To give it an update, I removed the red velvet … I mean I really love red, but … I wanted to do something different.

I found this lovely world map fabric at Spotlight. As we placed it on the seat, I told Juliana, “We have to make sure we fit New Zealand on the seat, so they don’t feel left out!” Ha ha. And all the Kiwi’s said … “Sweet as, Bro, eh!”

red chair 2 red chair 1

I was going to leave the chair in the white paint as it was still in fairly good condition, but I really wasn’t liking the glossy finish. Juliana and I had both tried cleaning off some little yellowish marks without success, so I took it outside and hit it with my new orbital sander!

I freaked myself out a bit at first, because I wasn’t intending to sand it back so much, but then I saw the lovely silky oak frame underneath and didn’t mind so much having more of the wood showing. It looks perfectly shabby to me!

red chair 4red chair 3

I gave it a quick wipe over with Minwax Wipe-on Poly varnish to seal it and the wood came up lovely.

red chair 6

red chair 11Check out this tall birdcage I received from the kids for Mother’s Day in May. My husband picked it out all by himself from a place he passes on his road trip to Townsville a couple of times a year, called Whitsunday Gold Coffee. He really goes there for the coffee, but it’s nice that he thought of me while he was drinking it!

red chair 8

 

That’s all for tonight! I’m exhausted … looking forward to our workshop tomorrow with another bunch of furniture painting enthusiasts.

Next blog post I’ll show you what we did to transform this telephone table:

phone table Typewriter 3

Happy Painting everyone!