Wednesday, February 10, 2010

“Nothing is more exciting and bonding in relationships than creating together” ~Stephen R. Covey

So, you may have noticed a theme here. We are completely in love with "projects." We comb DI for months until we find that perfect something that we want to take home, and turn it into a work of art! We also like doing art projects, sewing projects, organizing projects, you name it. We've been on a roll. Last weekend, we completed our latest and greatest (to date) project.

We found this old chair at DI for $4. When we got married, we purchased chairs for our kitchen table, but they were kind of expensive, so we only got two. About a year later, Landon's little brother came to stay with us for a few days and we decided to buy a folding chair so we could eat dinner at the table. Ever since then, when we've had more than one person over, we end up just sitting on the couch or floor to eat dinner. We don't love doing this with company, but the lack of chairs has made it a necessity. Anyway, when we saw this baby we decided to take it home and correct the problem. We were especially excited that it's all wood. It's a great chair. After I sanded down the whole thing (it took over an hour, my arms were really sore afterwards), it looked like the above photo. I then proceeded to paint the entire thing black with some leftover paint we had. Although our table is regular brown/wood colored, I wanted this chair to be more of a decoration piece that we can just pull over to the table when we need it. And our kitchen is red and black.
It cleaned up nice, eh? But I wasn't done. I really wanted to put a vinyl decal of some sort on it, really dress it up to be something beautiful. Unfortunately, all the designs I liked were upwards of $50. Sheesh. For a $4 DI chair? I don't think so. My wonderful husband helped me create a stencil out of the pattern I fell in love with, and then trace it on, yet again, with leftover paint. He then spent an hour touching it up with black paint to make it perfect. I love being married to an artist! Anyway, this is how it turned out:

And I am in love.
It's so great when something turns out exactly as you pictured it in your head. It looks amazing in our kitchen, like something we might have purchased for $150 at Anthropologie. And it's even better that we made it ourselves! Every time I walk past, I can't help grinning a little. 

Not bad for $4, eh?

7 comments:

Jamie Blake said...

I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE this chair! Looks awesome.

Anonymous said...

I love it!! Can I hire you to come decorate my house?

steph said...

That is so awesome! Such a cool idea!

Dani said...

That is amazing. I'm jealous of your good find and your talent.

Ben and Stacey said...

k, you guys should start a business. i so love this chair.

Kel said...

You are so crafty (in a good way) Amazingly well done, congradulations!

Catherine said...

holy cow, that is SO AWESOME!!! And I've been itching to do the same thing, but to the table and chairs. Now I just need to find an old set for cheap...