Chest of Drawer Handles

This has been the sad front of the chest of drawers we rescued from freecycle nearly a couple of years ago, sanded down, and left handle-less after I successfully rusted all the orignal brass drawer pulls...eeek.

I had spotted the idea of using an old belt as handles so scouted some used leather belts on ebay for a couple of pounds each.

I cut them into identical lengthed strips and made holes where I wanted the nuts and bolts to go once the strips were positioned in a bent handle shape on the drawers: 

Using these industrial "machine screws" I attached the leather handles to the drawers through the original handle screw holes and tightened the nights on the inside of the drawers:

Handles at last!

Upcycled Ottoman

About a year ago, neighbours of ours over the road were getting rid of the table and mirror below:

I played it fairly safe with the rejuvination of the table, and just went for a neutral white paint look (for the full details click here):

However, as Jim fully knows, and I am beginning to accept a) I am messy and clumsy and nothing in the flat stays plain white for long, and b) I am a crafting project addict and nothing in the flat stays plain white for long!

In the meantime I also became addicted to Pinterest and saw several inspiring pins about how simple and easy it can be to transform a dull, basic coffee table into a lovely, comfortable and interesting ottoman.

I began by measuring the table for the amount of foam I would need to sit neatly on top:

I found a great seller on ebay who provides different thicknesses of foam in the exact dimensions you require. I went for three inches thick, and used a spray mount glue to fix it to the table top:



I then took a trip to the lovely Fabrics Galore on Wandsworth Road and got myself some cheapety-cheap wadding. I went for at least double the area than of the foam so that it would comfortably wrap around the edges and underneath the table:

Using a nifty staple gun (how I lived without one before now I'll never know) I pulled the wadding gently around the foam and stapled it to the underside of the table:

Next came the material. I picked this grey and white striped number up quite cheaply at an antiques stall in East Dulwich thinking I would use it for some cushion covers. But, to be frank, we already have too many cushions, and it was the perfect size for the ottoman - it found its calling! Pulling the material taught, but not too tightly so that the foam and wadding were squashed down, I evenly worked my way from the centre of each side, stapling the material to the underside of the table:

When it came to the corners I found it easier to neatly pin the fabric in place first making sure the folds were crisp, before stapling.

The final detail were some buttons I found on ebay that allow you to cover them in any fabric...

...which I sewed evenly onto the top of the ottoman, using a long needle so that they attached onto the foam to give it a dimpled effect:

Et voila! A super-easy ottoman from a sad, abandoned table!

Paris Grey painted chairs

Over the past few months I have been building up quite a collection of dining chairs. As useful as they are for sitting on, standing on, storing and displaying things on, and generally making the place feel more homely, there are only so many that we can fit into our tiny flat. I have now conlcuded that this number is five. We have two lovely spindly ones from my mum and dad, an even spindlier one that used to belong to Jim's Grandma, and an extra, younger, chunkier one we picked up from a charity shop when the need to seat 4 people became absolutely desperate.

The latest acquisitions came from the one and only freecycle.org and were a lovely sturdy pair of wooden dining chairs:

They were painted lovely colours, but had seen better days. I wanted to make our mismatched dining chair collection feel slightly more uniform and part of the same family, so looked into painting them, or at least a few of them the same colour. I began by giving these two a good wash down in the front garden and waited for them to dry while sitting in the last bit of autumn sunshine back in September.

That morning I had dragged Jim to The Forest Bailif a beautiful interior decoration and furniture shop in Raynes Park, where I picked up a sample pot of Annie Sloane's chalk paint in Paris Grey. This composition of paint is absolutely amazing. It has a rugged appearance but soft texture to it and you don't need to sand down or prime the item you are painting before applying the chalk paint. A brilliant time saver for impatient people like me!

Having confirmed that I loved the Paris Grey - this was a mighty achievement as I am so indecisive, but loved the colour for it's name (a sentimental reminder of our trip to Paris earlier this year) and also because it goes with everything in our living/dining room - I dragged Jim to a second Annie Sloane stockist - Tomlinsons in lovely Dulwich Village, where I splashed out on a whole litre pot of the Paris Grey chalk paint and some protective clear wax.

And this was the final result, after two coats of the paint and one of the wax:

Next on the list - two more Paris Grey chairs, and possibly a purple one thrown into the mix??!

First foray into furniture rejuvination

Our neighbours over the road have been doing up their flat with extreme commitment and devotion over the past couple of weeks. Yes, I have been spying on them from our first floor flat living room window.

It all began when I noticed the couple knocking down the lovely, old, metal railing fence around their front garden, and replacing it with a wooden picket fence, which they proceeded to paint baby blue (gasp). Yes, baby blue. At first I was horrified, but they have since colour co-ordinated their front door and added some lovely little windowsill faux bushes in pretty white pots and I can now say, peering judgementally from our living room window, that it looks quite quaint (and much more adventurous than our pair of window boxes, packed with dead, dying, and general reject plants from Homebase).

On one spying occasion I noticed them removing a large collection of furniture, old plants, pictures and upholstery from their flat and leaving it on the pavement as rubbish. Having the thrifty, "waste not want not", "make do and mend" attitude that I do, I scurried downstairs and across the road to see what I could salvage. With the help of Jim - who mostly does always have better things to do, but I asked nicely - we managed to sneakily rescue an old home-made coffee table and a large, heavy, eclectic gold and red wooden mirror:

Both items had seen better days, and were painted/ stained in dark dreary colours, that would do nothing for our tiny, shoebox flat (apart from the mirror which generally will be quite good at splashing light around and making the living room seem a tad larger!)

I set to work washing the mirror and table down with some mildly soapy water and an old sponge to get rid of dust and dirt, and used an old knife to get trickier marks off, and then let them dry completely. It might have been sensible to sand down the furniture a bit, but I thought as it is not going to be used outside and none of it was varnished, a few layers of fresh paint would stick well enough to the exsiting paint.

There was a small selection of paint pots left in the flat when we moved in nearly three years ago, none of which has had a chance to be used until now. I picked a fairly safe looking Dulux pot in "Egyptian Cotton" and prised the lid off with a screw driver expecting to find algae and frogspawn inside, but with a quick stir the paint looked as good as new.

I gave the table and mirror three coats of the Egyptian Cotton each, lettign each layer dry completely (over night) before applying the next.

When finished and all dry, I was more pleased with the resulting white/cream colour of the paint on the furniture than the yellowy white colour that the paint pot depicted. Also, the carving on the mirror frame was still visible under three layers of paint, which I had been worried about disappearing.

I had fun playing around with the position of the table, which goes well with the neutral and pale scheme of our living room, but I have yet to find a home for the mirror as we already have at least one large mirror in every room!

Happy painting!