I’ve been at it again. After the successful chair and lantern painting of a couple of weekends ago, I’ve forged ahead with four more chairs, two more lanterns and a couple of mirrors too!
Today I headed out to a local charity shop in Southsea which sells furniture and lots of household things – The Ark on Albert Road. It’s utterly brilliant, and its profits go to The Stubbington Ark where we got our two lovely cats. A few weeks back I’d spotted a large dressing table mirror going cheap. A little scratched but that didn’t matter – I wanted it for the garden.
It was quite heavy to carry because of its shape but I managed to get it back home in one piece and started by putting it in place to make sure it was going to look how I wanted it to. It illuminated a dark corner very well so I set to work and painted it with some exterior wood paint (I bought a few sample pots last summer) after a quick sand down. I’d already painted another, smaller (and rather badly scratched) mirror in the same lavender colour – that one is propped up on my garden table and featured briefly in my previous blog entry.
It was a nice warm afternoon so it was soon dry enough to put back in place. I’ll need to paint the back and give it another coat on the front but it will survive until Sunday afternoon. I like it.
My new garden mirror brightens up a dark corner
I’d already painted and covered another two chairs last weekend and, completely bitten by the bug, I grabbed my two mis-matched chairs to give them a new lease of life as well. The four matching chairs are in the colours of (from left to right) my daugher’s room, the kitchen, the living room and the bathroom. The red chair is the same colour as the dining room and will get a cover to match the covers in there, and the green matches another room.
Finally, I’ve painted two more of the lanterns – also red and green. I gave them a little ‘extra’ with a quick spray of gold paint (I’ve bought nothing for this project except today’s mirror – all the paints I had in my ‘stash’ already).
I should point out that I haven’t done all this in one day! I haven’t gone completely mad. I have had a lot of fun doing it, but I’m going to turn my attention to indoors for a little while now. I’ve been collecting garden ideas on Pinterest so I can add to it again later. I’ll be thinking about herbs next.
All I need now is a party and some bums to put on the seats!
I’ll be posting more home and garden projects in due course. I have a few pieces of furniture I’d like to renovate (so far I’ve only read a book about it!), two rooms to decorate and a workspace to plan. Do let me know about your home projects – and if you’ve enjoyed this, why not sign up to hear about updates as soon as they’re posted.
I have been doing a few jobs though – a quick renovation of a chair to match my daughter’s room now that she has a desk to sit at, led to a second chair being kitted out to match our kitchen and dining room. The chairs will be for the garden eventually and I want them to reflect the rooms indoors – there are two more waiting to be done when I’ve located the right fabrics.
Paula Bailey 