I’ve been busy. Very busy.
I have a spare bedroom that has become a bit of a junk/storage/cat bed room. It’s been a waste of space for the last eight years as I can count on one hand the number of times it’s been slept in.
So I put my thinking cap on and used all of my persuasive powers on the other other half to let me turn it into a makeup room for myself and my daughter. A bit indulgent I know but hey, at least it will get plenty of use.
I’ve had in my mind how I want it to look and as soon as I had the say so from him indoors, I started the ball rolling before he had chance to change his mind. Anyway he has the garage for all his crap tools so I think it only fair that I have somewhere for mine!
The junk got chucked, the exact shade of paint got chosen and I got cracking…
First things first. Dressing table…I needed two so I went for two very plain high gloss black ones that will sit side by side along one wall. Cheap and chearful but practical with drawer storage to hide anything not pretty enough to be on show. I got these ones from Homebase…
And this is what they look like in reality (after three hours of self assembly and a few moans and groans about my bad back) – surprisingly sturdy considering the price…
As it’s only a small box room, I decided to paint three of the walls white to keep it light and airy and introduce colour on just one feature wall. I also discovered decorating (painting) isn’t my forte – that cutting into the corners lark is a bit of a bugger with bad eyesight and a not so steady hand. Get ya sunnies ready…
Cerise as cerise can be!
I wanted a kind of ‘boudoir’ feel to the room so had decided on Louis style chairs.
Searching the internet, I realised these were quite pricey and both myself and Naomi fancied the challenge of buying old junk shop chairs and upcycling them. A few Ebay searches resulted in me finding these ‘Art Deco-ish’ style chairs, local and cheap!! Bonus. The chap who owns the shop did say that they get quite a lot of these style chairs in stock so anyone requiring in one, I can definitely recommend The Anything Shop in Wakefield – they also sell on Ebay and can deliver (for a small fee).
OK, they don’t look very glam here but stay with me. My plan was to strip them, repaint them and recover the seat pads. I did want to do them all myself but had to concede defeat trying to strip the upholstery. My god were they well made – the other half had to use his manly strength to get rid of that delightful green dralon and the million and one staples.
Once stripped, I sanded all the framework down. Not too bad, although I did lose a talon and sanded half the skin off my finger tips which resulted in sore hands and the use of a gallon of handcream for a couple of days. My delicate pinkies are obviously not meant for manual labour (and the nails definitely aren’t!)
Luckily spraying the chairs in their new colour resulted in no loss of nails (although I did get the odd silver finger).
Neither myself nor Naomi could decide what colour to recover the chairs, so after receiving a mountain of samples, we decided to ‘waste not, want not’ and use all the samples to create two patchwork covers. Genius! And didn’t cost a bean!!
How gorgeous are these beautiful velvets?
Trying the patchwork out for size before I started the recovering…
Stapler in hand, I set about attaching out handiwork to the chairs. This was all a bit ‘trial and error’. I had saved the old upholstery fabric as a template but in the end decided against using it.
I stretched the patchwork over the chairs making sure the seat pad was fully covered before I started stapling. I found it easier to hold it in place by stapling it in the centre on each side, then the corners and then filling in all the gaps. There were a few fiddly moments but nothing too difficult to manage. And on the plus side…no nails were harmed!
Once all stapled around the entire frame, I trimmed off the excess material…
I was so chuffed with the outcome of the chairs that I decided to make a cushion to match…
The next step was to cover up all those ugly staples and give my chairs a completely finished look. Ebay was my saviour again (what would we do without good ol’ Ebay?)…
The fringed bullion braid finished my chairs off perfectly…
Time to stand back, admire the handiwork and be just a little bit pleased with ourselves…
For fear of this post being too long and boring the pants off you all (and because we haven’t made the mirror or curtains yet!!), I’ll save the rest for another post. Now I’m sure you’ll excuse me while I go whip the other half into shape (he’s supposedly making me the mirror).
Back soon with the finished room…Liz x