From Orange Chair to Doily Flair

I had an orange chair. 

A pleasantly quirky, orange child's chair. 

Darling as it was, it's 50 years old and needed a little makeover.

I read a blog called Trey and Lucy.

She does all kinds of wonderfully crafty things, like projects including

spray paint and doilies.

So I took inspiration and did this:

Sentimentality makes me a little sad that the orange is gone...
It was a chair I grew up seeing in the basement of my Nana and Papa's house in the Carmel woods. 

But I think this little chair turned out so sweet and girly!

This will go in Dee's big-girl room

(how can she be ready for that already??).

I could have sanded the edges and roughed it up here and there.

But I'm pretty sure Dee will do a fine job of that herself,

along with a little help from her siblings!

Desk Makeover

My friend Caryn gave me an old school desk and she totally inspired me to give it a makeover. 

 Here it looks just like the desks I sat at in elementary school, waiting for it's cubby to be filled with rainbow and heart shaped erasers and #2 pencils. That nostalgia (and a little bit of laziness) tempted me to leave it as is.

But reading Trey and Lucy and Lemonade Makin' Mama gave me the inspiration and courage to try a little spray paint therapy.  (Those girls spray paint everything!)

I didn't understand the attraction until I stood quivering in awesome wonder in the spray paint aisle at the hardware store.  You can spray paint anything!  Your refrigerator.  Your barbecue.  Plastic toys.

 

After a little sanding, I spray painted everything black.  After it dried, I spray painted the writing surface of the desk in an almond color. 

After it dried, I had a cathartic experience beating up the edges and sanding away spots here and there to reveal the first coat of black underneath, giving it a nice worn look. (Thank you again LMM!)  Then I finished it off with two coats of satin polycrylic.

A wood and metal schoolhouse chair is waiting in the wings for it's matching makeover, but for now, the desk is all ready to impart some learnin' to some little ones!

Andrea is hosting Thrifty Thursday on her lovely blog Rural Revival (one of my very favorites!). You can go there to check out other great thrifty finds and show off your own!