Painting a Rocking Chair

The weather is warming, the rain is ceasing, and flowers are blooming. Garage sale season is finally here! 

Now we own some sawhorses (of which we share 50:50 custody with my mom), and a rickety old rocking chair.

I am a firm believer in paint. Specifically Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. You know what I love most? There are roughly 37 paint color options and that's IT. No staring at color cards and buying 3 different paint samples before settling on a color. You get what you get. Sort of...

We are going for "French Country" in this room, so I bought a can of Napoleonic Blue. Is there anything more French? Except it was a tad too Crayola for me, so I custom mixed it with a bit of Graphite from a sample that was available. By the way, I buy my Annie Sloan paint from Mel's in North Spokane.

I think my blue to black ratio was about 1/8 - 1/12. I just kind of eyeballed it.

I really love the result. It is so pretty in person, and it has a very custom feel to it since the color is truly a one-and-only-anywhere-ever. And of course I added a bit of wax to make it glow, and to protect the chalk paint. Then I did some distressing with sandpaper around the edges to give the curves some contrast. I've been watching Queer Eye, and I can just picture Jonathan yelling at this chair saying, "Highlight those curves, Queen!" while chasing after it with sandpaper.

The back pillow will eventually end up outside when we have our annual drought. It is technically an indoor pillow, so here it resides until the rain officially ends.

I'm so happy I could rescue this chair from its fate in the junk yard. There is something so gratifying about upcycling things: good deeds, saving money, turning something old into something new-er. This chair has watched generations of children grow, seen maple sprouts turn into a tree canopy, and now gets to be a part of our family's story. 

Chair news aside, it's been busy around here, as usual. The garden is coming together, and we enjoyed our first fresh-cut salad the other night. Lawdy I love the summer. Even though I am already covered in mosquito bites.