Saturday 14 April 2012

Learning how to paint furniture...properly...


Despite the lack of updates, the budget-focused bedroom mini-makeover that I planned in January has been progressing (very, very) slowly...
Here is a reminder of the mood board for what I'm hoping to do to the room (given the usual constraints of living in a rental and being unable to change the wall colour).

Whilst I was in Australia in January I picked up a beautiful new old-white textured quilt cover - I have to buy my quilt covers in Australia as I have a queen-size quilt, and that is a size that is just not stocked in the UK. In keeping in line with the budget, I was able to purchase this at less than half price in the sale for only $79 - a price with which was quite impressed. I've also managed to find some reasonably priced stockists of ticking (for the bed valance) and toile fabric (for the European pillow covers). I just need to calculate how much fabric I require and then I can get busy making...
The only new furniture item I'm planning to purchase for the room are two new (old) bedside cabinets. I've managed to find one at a good price (i.e. under £10) on ebay, and am still looking for a second of similar height/dimensions. The plan has always been to paint/re-paint the cabinets, and so to that end, I attended an Annie Sloan Chalk Paint  furniture painting workshop this week.
The workshop was held at the beautiful Phoenix on Golborne which, unsurprisingly, is in Golborne Road, near Notting Hill in London. You may remember that I attempted a furniture makeover last summer when I repainted the little glass-fronted cabinet that I had also sourced on ebay - I only too clearly remember the days of anxiety with my sitting room floor completely covered in drop cloths and living in perpetual fear that I was going to knock over a tin of paint. Whilst I am reasonably pleased with the finished product, I found the actual painting of the cabinet quite tiresome, due to the number of coats I needed to add to ensure good coverage.
Thanks to the blog-world I had been reading a lot about Annie Sloan Chalk paints, and thought that this would be something I'd like to try for a future project...and in an effort to have some semblance of knowing what I was doing, I decided to sign-up for a Annie Sloan furniture painting workshop. These are held in a range of locations that stock the Annie Sloan Chalk paints - and the closest to me was Jess's lovely shop in Golborne Road.
So, for four hours, I and four other lovely ladies, were led through a whole range of painting techniques by Jess. From distressing and waxing, to crackling, decoupage and gilding...some of which I had never thought I'd use, but have now discovered a whole possibility of options for which I might like to use them for future projects. It helps that Jess's store is also a beautiful emporium of antique and restored furniture and vintage pieces, so it was not hard to gaze around and find some inspiration. Jess also provided some very helpful tips of other places in London and its surrounds (besides ebay) to source furniture - so now I have a new list of car boot sales and antique markets to visit during weekends over the summer.
Here are some pictures from the Phoenix on Golborne website...

And finally, a few of the lovely images of Jess's shop from the Phoenix on Golborne website for some inspiration for you all...
Now to get busy painting...

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