Painting Upholstered Chair.

Let's talk about another one of my projects, I know it has been a while :( Back in the Spring I got this granny chair for free, it was meant to be used for our church's Mother's Day photo prop. I know what you are thinking about that floral pattern... But it worked out perfectly because the theme was flowers. 

I decided to hang on to this "beauty" and see what I could do to it in the future. Yes, the thought of reupholstering it did cross my mind, but I didn't want to take on a such a big project just yet, so the poor chair just sat in the corner of my room waiting for its second life.

Let's forward seven months.. my Baby Shower was coming up (Lana thank you for being an awesome hostess). I needed to come up with a backdrop/photobooth area. That's when I decided to just simply paint my granny chair just like I did before with Aly's little rocker (which by the way turned out so nice and soft) 

I knew that my chair had much thicker fabric so it meant that the final feel of the chair wasn't going to be as soft as Aly's rocker.

The photo above is to show how it looks with first layer of paint.  It took me about 7 thin coats to finally achieve the look that I was going for. I gave it a good sand in between few coats. Because if I didn't, this what it would look like.

And here's it is finally painted still in my kitchen. After this photo the cushion got another coat of paint. 

Final step was to paint legs of the chair, I gave them very light sand, 2 coats of primer and 2 coats of Sherwin William creamy white paint (my own mix)

Here it is all ready for the party!

And of course lets squeeze a photo of so pregnant looking, only 28 weeks me.

Let's do final before and after 

Thanks for visiting!

From Tinkle Bell to Princess!

For the past half year my daughter's room has been getting makeover little by little. Not too long ago we scored this little rocking chair which was given to me by my dear sister-in-law Lana. 

Alyonushka loved it, but it did not really go with our princess theme in the room. At first I actually considered reupholstering it, but then as always tried to experiment with paint :) I've seen lots of painted upholstery on Pinterest. This is not chalk paint but just regular good ol' latex paint mixed with fabric medium. It suppose to prevent paint from cracking and chipping. The process is straight forward mix fabric medium with paint 1 part fabric medium two part paint, and ready to go. I used fabric medium by Martha Stewart Brand and loved it. You can buy this at any craft store like JoAnn's, Michaels or even Walmart.

Before painting any upholstery with this paint it's important to make sure that the fabric is nice and damp. I used old tshirt and water to complete this step, Alyonushka was more than happy to help.

Let's see first coat paint going, I got so excited forgot to take photo of it, so here's one with second coat going on.

And this one is with three coats of paint and fourth going on and still not nearly there.

I think it took me five layers of paint because it was thinner fabric and it had to absorb more paint. Also I did very thin layers. Excuse the light here, it was late at night.

After I was done painting the chair, I thought it look a little blah, better but blah. I decided to ad some accents. For this I used paint leftovers from bookshelf, by mixing with fabric medium. 

And here's the chair in its final spot!

Here's one more, just because :)

Enjoy Before and After

Upcycled Accent Chair

When I was expecting with Alyonushka back in July 2012, I've come across this garage sale, nothing good there, but then I saw this beauty sitting there and waiting... just for me : ) I really needed a chair that would be good for my back. Since 14 I had minor back pain. Regular rocking chair would not do for me, and this one, surprisingly was so soft and perfect for my back.

Lady sold the chair for $15. 

When I brought it home I think my in-laws thought I was crazy to buy something like this.

It has been sitting in my garage for about a month, and then the "journey" began.  I headed down to Portland's Fabric Depot they have some serious stuff there.  It was challenge to choose from so many awesome fabrics, but in the end I have decided to go crazy with light fabric and pink color. 

Because of my "belly" I couldn't do much, so I had to "assist" my hubby with the works. Here he's removing old staplers, and fabric. (someone tried reupholstering this before)

Good thing about this chair that it came from a smoke free home, had no bad odor, just ugly fabric and ugly paint job. We decided to keep the foam because I don't think I would be able to cut such nice bowl shape on my own.

Just take another look how ugly it was

After chair was completely stripped we took it down to garage for spray paint.  To sand it I used 120 sand paper, then 250. It took me a while just because I was a noob at this.

For this project we used Krylon Gloss White Spray Paint. It took us few coats to get it to that nice white color.

I used old fabric as a pattern, traced it on new peace and whala! Here's photo below of the bottom being reupholstered.

Enjoy before and after

I needed a foot stool for the chair and after a while someone on Craigslist was giving this stool for free. Just what I needed so I could start working from scratch.

Cool thing about this stool is that one side could be raised a little so you could get an angle when sitting down.

I used same fabric as the chair, stapeled it with foam and clear plastic (got it from walmart, this thing is thick and won't rip easily)

Spray painted base and then screw the top back on.

Enjoy final results.

***Update 3/18/2015***

Since we upcycled this chair I added trim of upholstery tacks. Surprisingly chair is holding up to Alyonushka :)

Ikea Hack: KNUFF Magazine plywood file stained

This one is a quick project unless you trying to stain 12 of them :)

My brother in-law is a chiropractor and has a second office that needs some help in organization department. I came accross these KNUFF Magazine plywood files, perfect for his office filing system.

First I tried staining bottom of the file just to test the color. It turned out to be exactly what I was looking for.

Even though it's plywood you can still see beautiful pattern of the wood.

Enjoy before and after

Vanity table: organized drawer

As a girl who loves makeup and everything that has to do with it, sadly, I did not have a proper organized system for my things. They all just lived in a bathroom drawer by the mirror. I wanted a vanity table but did not want to spend big on a new one. Lucky for me I found this one for $30 on Craigslist

 and when hubby went to pick it up lady threw in a vanity chair for free (one of the legs was detached, but it was no problem to me, easy fix with little wood glue) I was planning to paint vanity white and reupholster the chair anyway. 

This vanity was made back in early 90's and was well built. It had one big drawer perfect for my things. But I didn't want my makeup to be scattered all over the drawer. I went online to look for ideas and came across this girl on YouTube who had the perfect tutorial (I will attach link later,  as I am not trying to take credit for the idea)

Inside of the drawer was left unpainted because I've planned to cover it anyways.

At a dollar store they sell foam sheets, I got 2 of them. After measuring my drawer I cut foam to desired pieces.

Also while I was at the dollar store I visited home department aisle and found this roll of drawer liners (sticky vinyl) Wrapped each cut out and ta-da!

If I ever get tired of this color I can just disassemble it and wrap it in a different color vinyl (or fabric) To get middle peaches stay in place I secured them with hot glue.

Enjoy final results!

Here's before and after:

Stay tuned for my Vanity Deks Makeover Post.

Ikea hack: Toddler Bed

The other night when everyone was a sleep I was bored, and decided to sketch (excuse my poor art below) a bed for Alyonushka. I saw someone on Pinterest who had done something similar and figured if they can do it I can defiantly (make my hubby help me) do it. 

Here's a before photo from IKEA's website. I do not like the look of those legs.

I think my project is different and unique than the others I saw because my bed not only upholstered but it is painted. I wanted my bed's legs to be different as well.  So I found this footstool on Craigslist (photo from craigslist) 

We chopped off legs.

In time will reupholster this ottoman and place it in Alyonushka's room in the reading corner.

I originally had a regular mattress from crib and didn't feel like I needed to purchase new one. Here's where hubby comes in with his saw, we measured our mattress size and the bed and just chopped off same amount on each size, old legs got chopped off too.

Next I needed to trace my desirable design for headboard.

Hubby did pretty good job trimming this peace.

I had some foam leftovers from before and didn't need to buy new foam. Below you can  see how I constructed this Frankenstein :)

I used bread knife to cut foam (I know, not the best tool out there) 

Next I stapeled 2 layers of batting.

And I wasn't gonna use some fancy fabric because I would be painting this whole thing pink. That's right, you heard me :) I did this before for my master bedroom's headboard and it looks awesome!  We screwed headboard to IKEA's existing headboard so it would be one nice solid peace.

I wanted to have effect of a tufted headboard but didn't want to buy buttons. I tried tracing position for buttons in the front, but for some reason measurments were wrong, so I flipped board and it all came out perfect.  Hubby predrilled holes so I could go with my upholstering neadle and an upholstery thread (I had those already)

 And to make the thread stay I tied it to little pieces of fabric that have been rolled. 

 This is what it came out looking on the back.

I had some pink fabric to cover the back (even though it'll be in hidden I still want it to look pretty)

Sadly, I didn't take photos of how we screwed legs to the frame, but it was three screws from an angle and one on top. (For wood not to crack hubby predrilled holes for screws)  It is nice and sturdy, and can hold my weight as well. 

Here's Alyonushka just testing out the bed, you can see here tufted effect on the headboard. 

Next was to upholster the whole frame of the bed, I had fleece fabric, that was 1st layer and then added 2 layers of bating. 

And last, went on my (another shade of weird) fabric.

(Testing out paint)

Here you can see how the bed looks with 2 coats of paint (I like this pink color got it from lowes in oops paint for $2.50 per quart)

Last thing what I did was adding furniture wax and rub all over the painted areas, once it dried I buffed it with cotton cloth and now it has affect of a pink lather effect rather than fabric.

I'm glad my sketch could finally come a live :) 

I'm thinking to paint legs white but left them like this for now.

Areas where I had tufted effect I glued sparkly buttons. And here's bed finally in her room, she loves it! So do I :) 

Just for fun here's couple other angles.

Let's breakdown total cost:

Bed frame - $20 (Craigslist)

Legs - $15 (Craigslist)

Staples - $5

Paint - $2.50

Screws - $3

Total Cost: $45.50 

This was fun project and good practice for next bed for Aly. 

Stay tuned for more changes in Aly's room I will be bringing newly repainted dresser, book shelf and adding diy canvas paintings as a mural to the back wall. We decided to go with a princes theme.

I hope you enjoyed this post!