Fresh Coated Mid Century Stools

Welcome back. I hope you’re all wrapped up warm, and cosy at home. This morning I woke up to frost, and mist at -1. The fields and meadows had an extra ambience of stillness with the settling of delicate ice, on my drive to work today. Anyway, enough about the weather…

I’ve been working on these beautiful Mid Century stools which you previously saw in Kitchen Ideas. I bought these Cast Iron Rattan Stools on Facebook MarketPlace for £60. The legs were previously coated in white paint, which were quite scuffed from daily use. The Rattan seats were in pretty good condition but rather dusty and cob wedded.

It didn’t take much to bring these beauties back to a good standard. I started by dismantling everything. To take the seats of the iron legs, I removed the bolts from under the seat. The good thing about these frames is that you could potentially interchange seats if you didn’t like them or vice versa in terms of seats to frame. As the seats where dusty, I washed them down under the shower and scrubbed them with a toothbrush to get through the small cracks and curves. I didn’t use a scrubbing brush as I didn’t want something too rough that would cause damage. I then left these to dry for a week.

The frames were sanded by hand to remove the white paint. I used turpentine to remove any excess dust after sanding and to ensure the surface was clean. I mixed a tester tub of Grey paint with Silver tile paint to pretty these legs up, it took around 6 coats to create an even finish. Once dry, I assembled everything again.

My only dilemma now is which wall to build the Breakfast Bar on? Below is a birds-eye view of the kitchen please excuse the scales, I am not a technical drawer. The wiggly lines represent where the Breakfast bar could be mounted. Either along the Pantry wall or between the door and cupboard space. Both have pros and cons. For the pantry wall, it would be quite snug fitting both bar stools in that space. With the other, one person could sit comfortably but the other’s legs might get a little squashed against the radiator (don’t worry I’m not going to try to burn anyone.) I guess they could sit back a little. I’ll let you guys help me decide, Pantry wall or above the radiator? I look forward to seeing your comments.

Thanks for stopping by today, next time I’ll be making ‘Jute Plant Hangers.’See you next time, and have a great week!

Nik-Cre – ‘Making life-less rooms into living rooms.’

Dyeing Light Shade

Hey, how are you doing? Thanks for stopping by again.

I have to apologise, I haven’t posted in a few weeks as I travelled to Africa. I was intending to publish this post before I left but wasn’t able to fit everything in before flying out. I’m back now after a wonderful trip. It’s so amazing how each country has it’s own personality, in terms of culture, climate, landscape and more. I was really moved by my visit to Ghana, and hope to travel there again in the coming year.

So, this week we have Dyeing Light Shades. Dyeing these Light Shades has been a painful process. I have been doing so for several weeks now, let’s say it took longer than expected.

I saw a post on Pinterest about dying wood with Tea bags, so I decided to try it out with a few extra ingredients. As you know, Wood already has a natural beige tone to it. My experience was unlike school days when you stain paper with tea bags, a few dabs here and there; job done. No…it took around 6+ coats to bring this to the desired shade.

What ingredients did I use? Well, these changed throughout the course of dyeing. I made the 3 batches of dye with 2 teabags, hot water, soy sauce, and malt vinegar. By the fourth batch, I varied it slightly by adding red, yellow and brown watercolour paint to the mixture to get a stronger solid colour. This is not to say that the dye wasn’t brown, it was a rich colour, but the water was still rather translucent. When I added paint it thickened the mixture. I wasn’t looking for a dark brown colour but a nice Tawny shade of Brown. Here is the end product, with a more tanned look.

On another note, I had a workman come and assess my kitchen to change the lighting. I’m not going to be able to have the two pendant lights as you saw in my Pins, due to access issue of checking the wiring from the floor above. This is my fault as I put down flooring in my bedroom so we can’t lift the floorboards to alter the wiring. I’ve been advised to do some research in terms of different types of lighting, that will still incorporate the kitchen lights in a different form.

I’ll be putting a combination of these idea’s together with wood, spotlights, and pendant lights when I draw out my design. The images can be viewed better at my Pinterest.

If you’ve tried dying wood or anything else with household items let me know how it went. I’ll see you next time with ‘Fresh Coated Mid Century Stools.’

Nik-Cre – ‘Making life-less rooms into living rooms.’

Pinterest Tile Painting

Welcome, I’m glad you’ve stopped by again.

Autumn has been setting in here in Coventry. The leaves are lining the streets with an array of colours, and the morning frost is reminding us of what is to come. Wherever you are, I hope the weather is good.

This week it’s Pinterest Tile Painting. You’ve probably seen that Mediterranean tiles are on trend. I wanted to buy some for my kitchen, but the tiles that I have were in pretty good condition when I moved in. As you probably know patterned tiles can be quite pricey.

Whilst adding to my Pinterest boards I found this Pin. When I saw it, it was one of those moments when you think to yourself, ‘Why did I not think of this myself?’ It is genius, honestly. Why buy new tiles, when I can just paint over them? All I had to do was buy the paint and a stencil. If you know me, I’m quite indecisive when buying things. It took me a while to buy the stencil, but it was a bargain. 99p from eBay. I also bought some Tile paints, which were £3.99 each. The colour scheme for my kitchen is Saffron yellow, grey and white. As my appliances are grey, I bought yellow, grey paint and a clear lacquer. The lacquer is to seal the paint.

This project is very simple, but I went through a lot of trial and error. Here were the problems I faced:

The paint kept bleeding. Even though I had a stencil, the paint would bleed under the stencil and would not maintain the shape of the pattern. I tried painting with artists paint brushes, by doing strokes. I tried dabbing the paint against the tiles, it didn’t work. I then made my own stencil and applied the paint to the stencil to then transfer it on the tile. This one wasn’t brilliant, it kept the shape but the paint was rather translucent. Which lead to problem number 2.
The paint was translucent. Using the stencil was hard enough already, but to have to paint over and try to put the stencil back in the exact same spot, was going to be tricky. I gave this project a rest for a few weeks whilst trying to wrack my brains on how to make it work.

Weeks later I resolved the problem. I think I was watching an episode of Mr.Kate and she used a sponge to do some painting. So I went to my cleaning cupboard and got a household sponge. I also bought a small sample tub of grey emulsion paint (£1.) I mixed the emulsion paint with the tile paint to thicken it so that it would lose its transparency. After prepping the wall (cleaning the tiles with anti-bacterial and sticking the stencil on,) I dabbed the paint onto the tiles with the sponge. There was less bleeding and less transparency. I was, and I mean it; streaking with joy.

I worked along the bottom row of tiles, painting them alternately, and then did the same to the top row. As mentioned before the plan was to also use yellow paint, which would have been for the middle row but I abandoned this. I would have been too busy.

I tried to paint behind one of the electrical points in my kitchen, and then struggled to get the fixture back in place. This was another abandoned mission. I let the paint dry for a day or two and then painted over with the lacquer so that when regularly wiping the tiles down, it wouldn’t cause the paint to chip or rub off. This week’s project cost me £9.97 (minus the yellow paint.) I don’t know how much I would have spent on Tiles, but this was less expensive.

I hope you like the tiles, let me if you have tried something similar or going to try it. Next time I’ll be showing you my idea’s for my new kitchen. See you soon!

Nik-Cre – ‘Making life-less rooms into living rooms.’