One day, when I am even more grown up, I am going to have a beautiful sewing room. And in it is going to be lots of pretty girl things - including the sewing chair I just rehashed! This was a bit of a nightmare from the beginning and I am sure this chair was determined to stay just as it was! Here she is before.
I brought it for $15 off Trade Me. I had a $5 bid on it right up until pretty much the last 4 minutes, when someone came in and put a one off $14 bid on it. I was suspicious this could be a price hiker but what do you do? I wanted it, I paid more for it than I wanted, but I liked it!
So getting it home I gave it a sand back. I wasn't sure how far back I was to go, and being a bit over it after half an hour figured I had done enough haha. I started with quite a rough sandpaper, and then finished over it with a very fine one. Technical huh. Hubby then came along and being the perfectionist he is he attacked it and smoothed out the grooves I hadn't. Too lazy? Or just giving the chair character? You decide.
So after giving it a good brush over, it was time to paint. I had specially gone to see a Dulux Paint Specialist to ensure I got the right paint, as wanted it to be as near perfect as possible. After having a major discussion with the guy about how it has to be an oil based paint and why, and choosing my shade from 40 different shades of cream, I had my perfect paint.
I gave it its first coat, and had my suspicions something was up with the paint. It was soaking into the wood. He had assured me I didn't need to primer it if I was using an oil based paint. Hubby came home and asked me why I was painting my chair with a water based paint. Water based!!! He sold me water based! After all that ... oh well, mistakes happen I guess. I wasn't to know, paint is paint to me!
I left it to dry, sanded it back again and gave it another coat.
It still looked shocking, so again I gave it a light sand and gave it its third paint. This time it looked OK! I left it to dry, and while doing this Mr 4 year old decided it needed some dirty finger marks on the top. I was well over the painting etc by now, so decided this was yet another character mark. Haha lazy or giving the chair character? Again, you decide!
While this was drying I attacked the cushion, ripping off the nasty brown vinyl. I wanted to give it a bit of extra padding so cut some quilt batting out as extra bum wadding. I figure as my sewing chair its going to have alot of bum time so deserves to be extra comfy!!
I then cut out my fabric, using the brown vinyl as my guideline, but cutting extra to take into account the extra wadding I had added.
So then it was time to use my trusty staple gun and secure down the material. First the staple gun jammed after the first use. I unjammed it, went to use it again and it jammed. On trying to unjam it I broke it. It was well and truely stuck now. Hubby came to my rescue and fixed it. And on the first go I jammed it again. By now I was in a wee huff and again hubby came to my rescue by giving me his industrial gun to use. I had to promise him not to to shoot anything with it in fustration though. So great, I was in action again, but found out I didn't have the strength to get the huge staples in. So had to go around afterwards and bang them in properly with a hammer. But they were in and the chair was complete.
I am not sure I am 100% happy with it. Am still considering giving it that shabby chic, distressed look and attacking it with some sandpaper. Maybe. I am going to stare at it for a few days and see how I feel. But all in all, for a first attempt, I think it passes. Now to work on getting a sewing room so the chair has somewhere to live ....
No comments:
Post a Comment