Green with Envy

I’m going to start off by saying YAY! It’s March! But saying booo to the disgusting snowstorm we had last week. Boston didn’t see much (maybe 1-2 inches which is now gone) but I do know someone who enjoyed the snow on our morning walk:

So, what am I green with envy about? Look what I started last weekend:

Yup. I couldn’t wait to slap some paint on that beauty, but before I did, I had to do some clean up work.

If you remember from my last post I mentioned that I had used Dap wood filler to help fill in the holes from what I believe to be a caned seat. The filler worked great. I just took some general purpose sand paper and made it flush with the wood, and viola! Good as new. I did notice that the filler wasn’t flush in a couple of the holes, so I just used a small spatula and put some more in there. While that was curing, I decided to tackle the seat. It was looking very sad.

Initially I was planning on just taking off this old, dusty fabric and using the existing base and just putting my new foam and fabric on it. But once I took it off, I knew I had to create a new one.

Thankfully, we had a good sized piece of thick plywood to use so I didn’t have to run out to Home Depot. I just used the old one to make a template and started cutting away with the jigsaw.

Now, this took me about 20 minutes to do. Don’t judge. It’s not that I couldn’t follow the template, but I’m about 99.9% sure that I was using a dull blade and I didn’t want to run out and get a new one. I cut above the line to give myself some wiggle room when it came to fitting in the seat. I’d rather have it be too big then too small, so I always have the option to sand/trim it down so it would fit. Which is what I ended up doing for the next half hour.

But once that was done, it fit like a good pair of skinny jeans on a fat day.

Now that was taken care of, I was finally able to get my paint on. I went with BEHR Ultra Lemon Grass in semi gloss that I picked up at Home Depot a while back. I really wanted something that had a nice pop of color and something out of my norm. I tend to always steer towards the blue/turquoise/teal families, and with this, I wanted to have a little fun. But don’t worry, the fabric I chose still has those elements with it.

I went with a paint that also had primer in it to save some time. I didn’t know what kind of coverage I’d be getting and I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone. The first coat went on and I realized that it would definitely need more then just one as you can see the wood right through it. Second coat coming up this weekend or maybe even during the week…if I feel like it. Hopefully the next post, you’ll see some progress!

Have you ever worked on refinishing a piece of furniture? What’s the best advice you’ve ever received for painting furniture? I know I could use some advice…painting the spindles has been a challenge and right now I’m using a brush to apply the paint, but am thinking of using a small roller to do the second. Any suggestions?