I have been painting things!

Hello. Happy Thursday. :) Today I would like to show you some of my non-quilting projects. Well, they relate to quilting I guess but they are not quilts. So here goes.

I have recently discovered the Canadian company "Country Chic Paint". A local shop in my town is carrying their products and I started following their company on social media. Then they were featured on "Dragon's Den" on CBC where they won a business deal. In conjunction with that they had offered some starter kit specials on their website which I took advantage of and now I have a nice chalk paint collection.

I started off with a can of paint that I had bought in the local shop. I designed a quilt ladder and had my husband build it for me. He's good a things like that. (I am not so great with power tools.)

Quilt Ladder by Daydreams of Quilts.

We used some salvaged 2 x 4s and some hemlock dowels from the hardware store. I painted it with tough chalk paint in the colour "Icicle" and then roughed up the paint with sandpaper. Then I coated the ladder with two coats of "Tough Coat" as I did not want paint to transfer onto the quilts. I let it sit for a few days before putting quilts on it. As you can see from the photo above I have it quite loaded up and my husband is on notice that I will need at least two more. :)

Here's a shot without the flash. The ladder is up in our bedroom to keep our toddler from pulling it down on her head and the light is terrible in that room.

I have my Christmas quilt on my bed. :) The bedroom has kind of turned into the unofficial quilt room at the moment. (Sorry for the crooked camera angle.)

After the quilt ladder I moved on to the piano bench. I don't have photos of that today as I haven't taken my "after" shots yet.

Then I moved on to painting a large dining table that I recently inherited upon the passing away of my Grandma. The table has seen better days but it is part of the dining suite and I am nostalgic about family furniture (my bedroom suite came from my other Grandma and was my Great Great Grandmother's originally). The finish was actually flaking off when we got it so I got my husband to sand it down with his palm sander.

Welcome to my dining room.

Dining table after sanding.

This table is a good size and can seat 10 comfortably. The ends fold down and the middle leaf drops under to make it two other sizes smaller.

Close-up before shot of the finish.

I first painted the table and the "feet" a yellow colour called "Sunny Side Up". I let it dry overnight and painted over the yellow with "Summer Blueberries". Both are chalk and mineral paint. After an hour of letting the blue dry I took a bucket of water and a wet "scrubby" sponge and wet distressed the blue paint to show some of the yellow through it. I let it dry overnight before putting on two coats of Tough Coat.

After shot of the dining table. Two coats of chalk paint (yellow and blue) and two coats of tough coat.

I wanted quite a bit of yellow around the edges of the table so I took almost all the blue off on the edges. The turned wood on the pedestal legs is still in good shape so I left that unpainted so that the table will still tie in with the buffet and china cabinet.

I plan to paint the chairs as well and have ordered a blue and yellow toile Lee Joffa fabric called "Peaceful Kingdom" on eBay to reupholster the seats. (Another area that my husband helps me with.)

The majority of my Christmas decorating is in the dining room this year as there is a baby gate to keep my 14-month-old out of the room.

For formal and special dinners the table will have a table cloth of course but I like this casual painted look for everyday.

Close-up after wet distressing the table top.

Something disastrous happened to the finish at some point and it is badly pitted. I decided to embrace this and even played it up with the paint so it is now intentionally part of the distressed look.

The chalk paint is very easy to wet distress with a scrubby. Only a few scrubs and the yellow shows through.

I love this look and if my kids (or myself) bash the table it will (hopefully) just add to the distressing. This table will be great for cutting out garment patterns on too.

So what about you? Are you painting furniture pieces too? I will update everyone on the chairs as they progress. Thank you for stopping by my blog today.