My husband and I found this nice metal wall hanging at an estate sale. I have been looking for something to put on my kitchen wall ever since we repainted it.  I love the designs on it but it was in need of some TLC. It was rusting and pieces were flaking off both on the front and back.  First I  scraped off all the areas that had loose pieces and sanded it lightly.  Then I painted it Sherwin Williams Empire Gold – made into chalk paint.  This is the same color as my dining room which is close to where I will have this in my house.  I only had to paint one coat because I really wanted the original black to show from underneath. Then I distressed it which is very easy to do on metal pieces. Then I put on clear wax, let it dry and then antiqued it with dark wax.  This was one of the easiest projects I have done in a long time.

Here it is hanging In my kitchen over the pantry door. I love it!

We have been remodeling at the Country Kitchen and now have 2 men’s bathrooms. I worked on some old vintage room dividers that have been in the restaurant since it’s beginning 30 years ago to use for privacy panels in one of the bathrooms. The bathrooms have beautiful new tile walls and floors and didn’t look very vintage so I wasn’t sure if it was going to work. I painted a two tone effect of two shades of gray to match the tiles and I varnished with a heavy duty varnish.  I think they came out really nice and I was so happy to be able to use something we already had laying around the restaurant – especially after the expenses of doing this nice renovation.

This vintage cane back barrel chair was given to me by a friend. It was a fun learning experience and I am excited about the way it turned out.  The 1st step was to remove the upholstery and cording.  One thing I’ve learned from previous projects is to keep the piece of fabric you take off to use as a pattern. I almost threw out the cording because I was planning on using a type of braid.  I’m glad I didn’t because I realized how hard it was going to be to find just the right braid and to put it on without the staples showing.  I ended up reusing the cord – just covering it with the material which was something I had never done before.  This was definitely a Learn-as-you-go project. I cut the material strip to match the cord and stapled it on. Then I decided to sew with my sewing machine through the indention on top of the cord so I removed most of the staples and put pins instead.  As you can imagine this was really hard because of the thickness of it and  I didn’t know what kind of needle or stitching to use.  My machine kept jamming and I broke two needles in the process. (I am not an experienced seamstress but at least I knew how to replace needles from past experiences. LOL! )  With a lot of patience and praying I  was able to get the large cord that wrapped around the whole chair done on the machine and then did the small ones that wrapped around the legs by hand. My husband used his nail gun to attach the cording (most of the staples were hidden in the indention of the cords.)  We did use hot glue in some places. The buttons (tacks) were done with a method I had done on a previous project. I used the original tacks and made a new button cover with the material and hot glued the new button cover onto the original tack.  Sorry I forgot to get pics of the buttons on the chair but they came out great.  The chair was painted, before I did the upholstery, one of my favorite gold colors.  The fabric I used had cotton batting with it and I did have to sew it together which was also something new for me. My sisters are avid quilters – (not my thing)  so I just did the best I could.  I found this cool gold pillow with beads to put with it and now it is in my shop.

This shows the stages of the upholstery. I was surprised how nice the covering was under the blue material. I already had my plan of making it a bright color and the fabric picked out  so even though it was in good shape I still went ahead with my original plan. I’m glad I did because it will brighten up a room for sure!