the $10 shabby chair

I picked up this chair at the charity shop down the road (proving a very handy shop to have nearby).

You can't really tell from this pic but it was a very shabby 'shabby-chic' chair. Someone had been there before me with the crackle glaze, a couple of contrasting colours and had distressed the hell out of it. I'm not the biggest fan of crackle glaze anyway and after a bit of wear and tear, the legs looked like dried old crocodile skin, the seat was bumpy and both were rough to the touch;

 

So I set about sanding down as much as I could but the carving on the legs was hard work and I coudln't really get into the gaps sufficiently. I did as much as I could and then did the seat. As I started sanding though, the beautiful colours below started coming through and so I then used a finer sandpaper to buff it up. I loved how it looked so decided rather than paint the whole thing, to just paint the legs and back and leave the seat as it was. 2 coats of primer and 2 coats of white later it looked like this and is now the towel chair in the guest room. Best of all it is smooth to touch unlike the scaly crackled piece it was before. Love it.

 


Sophie