Barstool makeover ...

I started this post a year ago and just realized I never finished it or published the post. Whoops!

Above is a picture of our kitchen when we first moved into our house in 2010 (the walls are primed in this picture, they were originally burgundy). We purchased the Oak swivel barstools off Kijiji.  We don't have room for a dining room so our Kitchen Island is our table and good comfortable chairs were important.  The stools were great at first but they have become a dropping spot for everything ... lunch bags, purse, courier packages, you name it!  Arghhhhh! They were really bothering me so I started searching for new ones.  Tada! I purchased a set of Tabouret metal barstools from Overstock in black (the picture below is the metal finish)

I LOVE them in black and with the Kitchen painted and foot rest on the island painted out in black they are going to look STUPENDOUS!

So after the new black barstools arrived we put the oaks tools in the back shed aka the Spider Den creepy!.  The back shed has become a catch all for everything we don't want in the house as well as a home for wayward oversized spiders ewwww!.  During a Spring clean out I decided to list the Oak stools on Kijiji, I even had a customer down to negotiations via email.  That's when Frank confessed that he didn't like my cold black metal barstools and was much happier with the Oak ones.  WHAT????  Say it isn't true.  Hmmm, what to do?

I thought about them for a while. Well, actually, I lied awake at night stewing over what I could do to like these suckers again.  Wait, what? Like them again?  Ummmm, the 80's called and they want their barstools back!  Then one Saturday morning I was reading my blog feed feeling envious of the all the great finds other bloggers kept finding in some relative's old barn.  BOOM! that's it!  I want these barstools to look like they had been sitting in the corner of an old barn (or back yard Spider condo in our case).  I had used Miss Mustard Seed's Milk Paint on a couple of projects but I had always used bonding agent to help the paint adhere to the surface.   In the past I had not been ready to give up control to the potential chippiness achieved by not adding bonding agent.

Oh boy Oh boy Oh boy!  This is gonna be fun!

Wait! these are chairs with spindles, ugh!

Ya but they are going to be chippy.

Anyone else have these conversations with themselves?

OMG! Look! it's starting to chip, yippee!!!

This is the look I get from Molly B when I start jumping up and down with excitement.

OK, I got so excited that I missed some steps in my pics.  After the chipping started I sanded off the chips and got the chairs down to a smooth finish.  Then I decided that the "so called barn" I found these old chairs in would be a Dairy Barn … yeah, that's it! So out comes my Dairyland Stencil!

I roughly stencilled the seat of each chair in a light grey.  I wanted these to look old so I used very little paint.

Look!  Aren't they fun!

OK, everything in the house is getting painted in chippy Milk Paint!

I LOVE these stools now! 

When we finally get the kitchen finished I will take a picture of them in place.

JoJo xo

2012 the Year of Change

2012 will be a year I remember forever!

I haven't posted lately and haven't worked on any projects for a while.  Come Fall I will have lots to share! I want to take the opportunity on this post to update the year so far.

The end of March we said good bye to our best friend and companion Buddy.  We've had Buddy since he was 3 years old, he was a rescue dog.  The term rescue dog is often misinterpreted, if you choose to adopt a dog from a shelter they will spend the rest of their days rescuing you! 
Buddy the miracle dog was diagnosed with Bladder Cancer in 2005 and we were told to take him home, make him comfortable since he only had about a month left with us.  I use to love burying my nose in the fur on his head when I hugged him, I know it sounds odd (especially to people who find dogs stinky) Bud had a perfume scent to his fur. No really, he did.  We can learn so much from our dogs, Buddy didn't know the vet said he had a month left to his life so he lived 7 years after being diagnosed.  He was good most of the time except for the occasion flare up of whatever was going on in his bladder.  If I had a dollar for every time Frank wanted to give Bud a special treat like ground beef with his dinner ... Frank would say "he's not well you know!"  haha! 

We miss you Budman, you will always be in our hearts!