Since finishing my PhD I have been looking for other things to fill in my time. Although I do like to have pajama and duvet days I do tend to get fidgety after a while and like to get busy with something, which can really annoy my husband as I seem to be always on the go.

Whilst making our house into the home that we just adore I have been getting stuck in to some up-cycling projects around the house. Since this is my first adventure in giving furniture a new lease of life I thought I would start on something small.

We picked up this tired and rather tatty looking solid wood chair up from a charity furniture warehouse for £5. It looked like it needed to go to a new home and it was the perfect little project to get started on.

It was relatively easy to get all of the paint work sorted. Once Alfie had done his manly sanding down and basic prep work I could get started with applying the Annie Sloan chalk paint. Luckily there is a Annie Sloan shop right in the heart of Oxford which meant that we could see the colours first hand rather than ordering blind from their website. We bought a 1 litre tin of Old White and some light wax for around £24.

Ta dah, transformation complete! It looks like a completely different chair. This beauty is now sitting looking pretty in our guest bedroom. In all honesty the hardest part of transformation was getting the corners right when reupholstering the seat pad, which turned out ok after a fight with a staple gun.

Laura Ashley was a God send for lovely fabrics and a money trap as I now want everything in their home furnishing store, so my style. Luckily for us when we visited the store they had a promotional event and some clearance items on sale. I knew that I wanted something neutral for the seat pad so I could put the chair in different rooms at a later date. We chose a lovely striped upholstery fabric that has fairly neutral tones with muted red and green stripes. A metre of fabric cost $4.20, boy I love a bargain!

In actual fact this up-cycling lark is actually quite addictive as we turned our hands to 2 gold-guild mirrors that we already owned too. Sorry there is no before pictures as we had already started painting them…excited much?

The top mirror sits above our open fire place adorned with bunting from our wedding, much more well suited to our décor than the original gold- guild frame. Next to feel the wrath of our paint brush was a much larger mirror that we bought on sale years ago and have never actually used as we have never had a large enough space for it. It’s current home is on top of the book shelf in the guest room, which is becoming quite the gallery for our restoration projects.

Up-cycling is so much fun! I’m constantly thinking about what I can turn my hands and paint brush too next.

Have you ever up-cycled a piece of furniture? Do you enjoy crafts and painting?

17 Comments

Claire on March 7, 2013 at 7:43 AM

What a transformation! It looks fab Jemma, love the bunting too 🙂
- Jemma Andrew on March 8, 2013 at 1:25 PM
  
  Thanks Claire, I’m really happy with it!
Lauren on March 7, 2013 at 9:10 AM

I can’t go in Laura Ashley home, I just want everything in there ha!
- Jemma Andrew on March 8, 2013 at 1:25 PM
  
  Everything is so beautiful isn’t it…I want it all!
Persistence Over Perfection on March 7, 2013 at 9:53 AM

Ahhh, painting the gold frames white is a brilliant idea – I never considered that! The chair looks fab 🙂
- Jemma Andrew on March 8, 2013 at 1:26 PM
  
  Thanks Ceri. Yeah we got a little bit carried away but the mirrors turned out great!
nourishmovelive on March 7, 2013 at 10:21 AM

the chair looks great!…I recently renovated a house which was a huge learning experience!! I bought almost all of my furniture in charity shops and on ebay and painted them up…it’s so satisfying isn’t it, the 1st piece I painted I couldn’t believe it was the same furniture!!…looks like you’re doing pretty well on the ‘homemaking’ front 😉 x
- Jemma Andrew on March 8, 2013 at 1:30 PM
  
  Wow, renovating a house is a major project. I would love to do that one day!! Ebay and charity shops are great aren’t they. They definitely get the creative juices flowing.
Bec - Half Baked on March 7, 2013 at 11:34 AM

Chair looks fabulous! Wish I could do that – sadly, home decor and DIY and me do not mix. Love the seat cover 🙂
- Jemma Andrew on March 8, 2013 at 1:24 PM
  
  I thought I would be crap at it but was really surprised how well it turned out. I’m sure you would be fab!
emma green on March 7, 2013 at 2:28 PM

fabulous work! i really want to do up some old furniture 🙂
- Jemma Andrew on March 8, 2013 at 1:23 PM
  
  Thanks Emma. It really is so much fun and really satisfying!
Maria on March 7, 2013 at 5:12 PM

Wow it looks fab! 🙂
- Jemma Andrew on March 8, 2013 at 1:23 PM
  
  Thanks Maria!
AnnaTheApple on March 7, 2013 at 8:43 PM

Oh wow that’s so impressive! You definitely have a talent. Very pretty 🙂
- Jemma Andrew on March 8, 2013 at 1:23 PM
  
  Thanks, it’s amazing what a lick of paint can do.
Lexi_T on March 8, 2013 at 6:48 PM

This looks lovely – I have cushions in this fabric, love Laura Ashley. We’ve upcyled a few things and it is so satisfying to have your own originals in your home!

A labour of love

17 Comments

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