New Years Makeovers

Many of you may know that my grandmother is living in a nursing home and my family has begun the process of cleaning out her home and getting it ready to be sold. As we are going through the house I'm discovering many quirky similarities between me and my grandfather (who I never met because he died in 1978). All of the furniture bears the marks of his repeated paintings and stainings, and proves that he was obviously a man who liked to alter things as much as I do. In that same tradition, I decided to alter two chairs that I brought down from her house so that they would better fit in with our new living room in New York.

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The process I used was a two-step method I found described in Martha Stewart Living for creating an "antiqued" painted finish. I first applied a coat of a pale Marie Antoinette-esque blue, and covered that with a coat of a purpley-grey neutral color. After letting the top-coat sit for an hour I went back in with steel wool rubbing away the top color to reveal the light blue in patches.

(click to enlarge)