A couple of months ago I did a furniture painting workshop with a friend. We found this offer through Groupon and I decided to give it a go despite 1) not having my own place and therefore owning very little of my own furniture, and 2) not really being interested in furniture painting. I like learning new stuff though, so I figured it would be fun and interesting - and I wasn't wrong.
The workshop was run by a one-woman company called Love House and was taught from a sort of repurposed shed in her back garden in Southwick. It was pretty cool all the same though. I took along a chair which my Mum's been wanting to have painted white for about 15 years. It's one of those big rounded ones with a sort of semi-circle for arms (I'm crap at descriptions, you'll see in a minute). I was worried it would be too big to get painted in time but the teacher didn't seem worried when I struggled into the shed with it.
The paint was chalk paint which means you don't need to strip it back to the natural wood, you can just slap it straight on. It's better to actually have varnish already on the item, otherwise it's more likely to have weird staining showing through. Unfortunately my chair had already had the paint taken off which meant it there is a bit of yellowish discolouration on the finished product.
See, one of those chairs. What are they called? Oh, never mind.
There's me slapping the paint on above. You only use a tiny amount and build up the layers. It's almost like dry brushing and - what with it being chalk paint and all - it dries in minutes. If you're bored of waiting then you can use a hair dryer to speed up the process! I had to work super fast because my item was pretty big (certainly the biggest in the class) and the teacher ended up helping by painting around the other side to me. It was a bit manic!
Once you're happy with the painting you sand back the edges/detailed bits to give it some definition. You can also add in scuffs to make it look older and sort of lived-in. I wasn't too sure about this bit, as I didn't want it looking battered. I ended up going along with what the teacher said to do, and it does look ok, but I am still quite tempted to get some more of the paint and touch up the scuffed bits!
The next step is to whack on a bit of wax, which - as it's chalk paint and therefore dry - the furniture drinks up in no time. Then when you're done with that you put some varnish on the bits which will take a lot of wear. I got overexcited and ended up varnishing the whole chair. Then, with about 5 minutes until the end of the class I was frantically pointing a hair dryer at it (which was melting the wax! Aaaagh!) and cursing myself for being so overzealous, as I had to stick it in the back of my car in order to go home.
Here I am, throwing waaaaaaay too much varnish on it
The colour of the paint is called 'Vanille' I think. It's not quite white, more of a sort of cream. The teacher didn't think white was a good idea given how big it was (takes a lot of coats to make white look decent I think).
Here it is once I got it home - thankfully without leaving a white coating of paint over the backseat of my car!
Superchair is GO!
I'm pretty happy with it! You can see the scuff marks above, which I'm not 100% on, but mostly I think it looks good. I love where I wore the paint off of the studs on the seat, as it's lovely to see them poking through - that bit of scuffing is ace.
The chair lives in Mum's bedroom and she's really chuffed with it. It was not long before Mother's Day so it kind of counted towards that too (she ended up getting about 5 presents from me this year, lucky stick).
Here's my glamorous assistant checking it out
I would definitely like to buy some more of the paint and give it a go again at home. It's really satisfying when you're finished and it looks like a different item altogether. I've already picked out a few bits of Mum's furniture which could do with a face-lift too!
See you in June x
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