French Country Trio

Once again, I have no "before" photos, but I will tell you how these chairs began in my life. . .  my sister and I found these chairs at a yard sale in a very small town. They looked as though they had the original paint of black lacquer, the original green naugahyde (I know - isn't that terrible sounding?), and lots of knicks in the lacquer paint (and it wasn't a shabby, cottage look - believe me).

My sister purchased them with good intentions for a make-over, but decided to pass them along to me for some TLC. I began the thought/design process. I decided the black looked good, and so did the chippy paint, but they just needed the right kind of paint.

I stripped them down to the natural wood with lots of sanding and scraping, primed them with two coats of Sherwin Williams primer (I love that stuff) then gave them two coats of a matte, black paint also from Sherwin Williams. After the second coat of paint dried I decided to do a little sanding to make them look distressed. One thing I learned was NOT to use a sander when you do this process. It looks too uniform and not natural. So, learning from trial and error, I then used good ol' elbow grease and some sand paper. Perfect! That was just the right look I was trying to achieve. 

The final step was the selection of the right fabric for the chair bottoms, skirt and back cushion. Black and egg shell toile was the perfect choice for the "French Country" look which was the style I decided to pattern. With the help of my staple gun, hammer, and pliers I soon had the seats recovered. The finishing touch was the adorable pillows (with which my other sister assisted) for the backs of the chairs tied on the posts with a bow. One chair is a rocking chair (on springs) and the other is a standard chair. 

The little table seemed to be a perfect match with the "French Country Duo" (however, it was soon becoming a trio). I prepared the table the same way that I prepared the chairs: the same sanding, priming and painting methods. I penciled in a rooster picture that I came across and quickly painted the fowl with some Delta paints! Voila! The French Country Trio"  

Now the trio is sitting pretty in my antique booth waiting for the right new owner to come along!