THE WRITE WAY

I bought this roll top desk for only £25 on Facebook Sales. Where else? I could see profit in it for my pancreatic cancer charity.

As it was pine, it was easy to re-paint.

I used a new paint I found recently at B&Q.  Its velvet finish and no prep. Not described as chalk paint, but  good as.  Also a good range of colours. Two coats and done.

I sold it for £90 on Facebook Sales! A win for the charity.

  

 DRESSED TO IMPRESS

I have owned my dressing table for more than 40 years. It is beautifully made, with dovetail joints to the drawers and inlaid stringing on the drawer fronts. However, it was battered when I bought it for £20 all those years ago, before painting furniture was a 'thing'. Well, Covid and lockdowns have given me far more time than I have ever had, so no excuse to not get on with doing something with it.  I also had a chair I use at my dressing table. It belonged to my husband's mother, so is probably over 100 years old. Its a little unusual as its a corner chair. It too had seen better days, with a sagging seat and the wood coated in hair spray! I decided on a colour in my curtains that picks up the grey/green of leaves.  Here is the process:

I wiped down the whole dressing table with white spirit. I removed the handles and knobs. These I painted with pewter gilding wax and left to dry. Really easy and no buffing needed!  You can see the damage to the wood!

The chair was stripped, scraped and sanded and then reupholstered with new webbing, padding and calico before covering in some of the curtain fabric saved for about 40 years!

The paint I used is standard wall emulsion because I could not find a chalk paint in the colour I wanted. It is by Little Green in a colour called Livid, which I thought was appropriate as that is how I feel a lot of the time! After two coats of paint, it was finished with a coat of Sadolins Exterior Matt Varnish, which is incredibly hard wearing and invisible when dry.  I had previously used it on a butchers block, which is wiped down daily and it is still the same as the day it was applied.

I have made one decision. I won't be using hair spray in the bedroom in the future!

 

A TRUNK CALL

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This trunk is another of my Facebook buys At £15 I didn't expect much, and certainly when I got it home, I was right. It was covered in coated hessian that had split and didn't look like it could be recoated. I was dubious about removing it because I knew it went under the brass studded banding, but there seemed no option.

A sharp craft knife showed that any glue that had been used to stick the hessian to the wood had long since dried out. I was able to simply make a slit and rip it off. I used the craft knife to cut as close to and in fact under the pine banding, and it worked. Filling, sanding and then painting produced a very sad Cinderella into a very nice Princess. I intend to line the inside with a fabric from William Morris called Vine, which has the colour of the outside in it. I will post when its done.

The metal banding was rusty and despite sanding, looked shabby. I then found a gilding wax on Amazon in pewter. What a revelation. Just paint it on and leave it to dry. No buffing and it has transformed the metal to what it would have been like when it was new.

Below is the inside, finally lined with the Sanderson Vine fabric. This is recycled from  curtain we had when we lived in Croydon. One was used to cover dining chairs in my present house. Another pair are the dining room curtains here too. Lovely quality fabric.

And here it is finished.  I am now keeping hats in it in my bedroom.

 ON REFLECTION

This mirror is quite an ordinary thing so I didn't notice that it was looking a bit dated.  Now its been chalked with Autentico paint.

NOT MELLOW YELLOW - NOW TRUE BLUE
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This little dresser was made for us to fit an existing space. It is useful but I wanted rid of the yellow pine.  I painted it in chalk paint from Grand Illusions in Nordic Blue. Its actually almost charcoal grey.  I painted the inner shelves in Sarah Jayne Vintage and finished it all with Sadolins Exterior Matt clear varnish.  It is my latest find and definitely the most hard wearing varnish so far, whilst being invisible! Now, what about the door?

A NURSING CHAIR
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This little chair was lying in the cellar for years, no seat and a lot of cobwebs.  Now it has a seat covered in Liberty fabric and has been waxed.  I nearly painted it, but so glad I didn't.

China Cabinet
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This is another Facebook purchase. Abandoned in someone's garage and destined for the dump if not sold for £15!

It has been painted in three coats of Sarah Jayne Vintage cream/white chalk paint outside and Duck Egg chalk paint from Aldi, a recent bargain discovery.  A lot of work to paint the banding on the glass, both inside and out, but a scraping blade was easier than masking tape!  It has three glass shelves. Finished with a coat of Polyvine Dead Flat Wax Finish varnish. Its off to France now for a new life.

Here it is in place in France.