Chairs for Charity 2015

I finally finished my chair restoration for Chairs for Charity auction 2015.

Each year I donate an up-cycled theme decorated chair to a great cause. Chairs for Charity to bring awareness to L.A.M. My friend Carrie suffers from this lung disease and is a champion for getting the word out and raising funds and awareness of this little know affliction. You can read more about it here.

Below is the primed chair--it was a walnut wood color with this rose pink seat

 After priming, I used a couple of different stencils to get my flourishes on the back panel. I then used a chalk finish paint called Americana Decor in the "Yesteryear" color.  I will put my 2 cents in about chalk paint. I know there are many die hard Annie Sloan paint fans out there. I have used her paint, I even took a sponsored ASP class, and I love her paint. But at $40 a quart, the alternatives on the market are just as good. And there are a lot of recipes on the internet to make your own and several are not the right proportions and you can get some bad results. I have found the best "make your own" recipe is on the Lowe's website. You can buy their little sample pots (they will mix you any color you want). But for this project I was able to get this paint on sale at Craft Warehouse for $6.99 and I really liked the color.

Next was the waxing. I started with an antique color wax. I hated it! With the brown cast on the grey it looked dirty. So I mixed a clear wax with some black acrylic paint and waxed again and got the results I was looking for.

 finding the perfect seat fabric was not easy!

Sometimes it pays to walk back to the clearance area of the fabric store! I found this amazing remnant for $9 a yard. The bird was the perfect shade of grey.

 

So now the hunt begins again for next years chair!

French clocks Accent chair

This actually was my project for 2014 but only getting around to share it...
Each year I donate an up-cycled theme decorated chair to a great cause. Chairs for Charity to bring awareness to L.A.M. My friend Carrie suffers from this lung disease and is a champion for getting the word out and raising funds and awareness of this little know affliction. You can read more about it here.

I purchased 2 of these chairs from a local thrift store for $15 each.

Above is the primed chair--I forgot to take a pic of the original I was so excited to get started!

I used a chalk finish paint from the Lowe's recipe. Just love that it is so cheap to just buy one of the little 8 ounce jars in any color and mix up my own. This was a color called "Linen". 

After I did some random stenciling, I used a dark wax to get a nice aged look, let that dry, then lightly sanded randomly for distressing. Followed up with another light coat of clear wax and buffed.

I recovered the seat with heavy french script upholstery fabric--I only removed the piping of the old cover. Simply went over the top of the old fabric. Easy peasy.

The chair bid up to $125.00. Not bad for less than $25 investment!

Stay tuned for my 2015 chair--same design and a hint---this one is a very pale grey!

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