Oh dear! We found ourselves the owners of two very bland linen chairs with basic cerused oak frames. Are they elegant? Sure. Will they coordinate with just about anything? Well of course…they are the most vanilla chairs we ever purchased in our lives. BUT…they are really well made, and actually quite lovely in person.
Oh dear! We found ourselves the owners of two very bland linen chairs with basic cerused oak frames. Are they elegant? Sure. Will they coordinate with just about anything? Well of course…they are the most vanilla chairs we ever purchased in our lives. BUT…they are really well made, and actually quite lovely in person.
We knew we were going to paint them but inspiration hadn’t struck until this Sunday, when I was at the shop alone. I grabbed a small pot of Athenian Black (Annie Sloan’s newest, deepest Chalk Paint color) and got to work. I opted to only paint the trim of this dainty little diva…but then, I added water to my paint and dared for some drama!
I am a sucker for an unexpected stripe (like this one on the Barclay Butera ottoman) so I opted to create my own version of an off center incomplete stripe. I knew that using the watered down Athenian Black on this oatmeal linen would give me a stonewashed grey chambray look, which was perfect!
So I used a 50/50 water to paint mixture and a natural bristle brush and got to work (after masking off the stripe lines. The linen was a bit of an open weave and not fully natural fibers so I was expecting and hoping for the bleeding to give it a worn, imperfect look. I just did one coat of watery paint solution within my taped lines to achieve this level of coverage. For more of an opaque finish, allow the paint to dry and paint a second coat.
Optionally, I could have sealed it with wax, but I really wanted to retain the rough linen feel of the tactile textile, so I allowed it to dry and kept it as is. We will heat set it with a hair dryer to cure it.
We really love how the pair turned out. Come visit them in our studio in Montclair, 12 miles west of NYC! Or if you aren’t local, be sure to follow us on Facebook and Pinterest and Instagram and YouTube. (and and and…)
We LOVE a good Annie Sloan project and are always happy to help. If you don’t have a local Stockist, contact us anytime for advice or to purchase your supplies here. HAPPY PAINTING!
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