Move over place cards!

I needed 10 chairs and I was not willing to pay much so like a lot of people I resorted to kijiji. I found these chairs that looked so good on the photo and they were the perfect colour. I called and agreed over the phone to take them for 20$ each and that included them to be delivered to my door. Great right? well when I got them they looked like a 2 year old had painted them, there was paint all over the black vinyl too. However the chair was solid and I am a crafty type and for 20 bucks I took them anyways, there was just something about them that I liked.

I spent about 1 hour per chair trying to get the oil based paint off the vinyl because recovering was not an option at the moment. I have to say I dont know what kind of vinyl this is but it can probably stand up to a tornado. I used var sol and black sharpie to get spots I could not remove and it worked pretty good.

I kept them like this for over a year and I finally decided to refinish them. I used a black and Decker mouse sander and just went sander happy. I even sanded some spots on the vinyl that still had some traces of paint,it actually took paint off and no damage to the vinyl. Did I say this vinyl is in-destructive?  When I was done with the just sanded look showing some previous paint colours and some bare wood and I loved it so I stopped there.  Looks farm house rustic chic a nice addition to my newly designed kitchen.

So I had to a party last night and in comes one of my friends and says "wow great chairs is that chalk board?" So I look down at my chair and the black vinyl on the back side of the chair really looks like a chalk board.  How did I not see that? Well I just happen to have chalk on hand because if you follow my posts you will know I love chalk board labels on my spice jars and I wrote my name on the back.  How cute is that? My friend Marlene says hey you can write your guests name on backs of chairs instead of place cards. Amazing idea and it just wipes off with damp towel. So Cool I LOVE MY 20$ CHAIRS.

Before

look at all paint drips, it was everywhere

who paints like that? a 2 year old right?

80 grit then 120 and about 1 hour of time per chair

and voila! my cool chalk board chair.

Functional Wall Art

Wall art can be functional as well as pretty.  This tray was purchased at a Winners before Homesense came to Canada many years ago by me and I had it on my wall for some time and then I gave it to my daughter when she purchased her first home about 7 or 8 years ago and it hung in her kitchen all these years.  The other day I went over to visit and I noticed she gave it a new life and I loved it so I want to share it with you. With some simple s hooks and the use of the the trays own wiring she hung up kitchen utensils and its now functional and beautiful.