Lace Chair... The Beta Version

I wanted to share a project that didn't work out as well as I hoped, but that I still think has potential. 

So. I saw one of these chairs in a furniture store window and instantly fell in love. In real life they are even prettier, they're translucent, so it looks like the lace is just hanging there in the air. Beautiful.

So beautiful, in fact that I was prompted to drag myself and the kid's buggy up a great big flight of stairs and into the shop.

'Shummanna numma nu... much are the chairs?' I asked and winced in anticipation.

'$375' the chap said.

'ooooooh' I said, 'that isn't really that much... not really... of course we'd need a pair, but still... it's not that much for a very beautiful, precious thing...' I mumbled to myself, sounding more and more like Golem.

'Course, I don't have $750 to spend on two chairs so I signed heavily and hefted the buggy down the stairs again. But the idea of lace chairs was stuck in my head.

Here's what all that leads to:

Turned out a bit rubbish really, mostly because I can't leave well enough alone.

Here's what I did and how I went wrong.

I used:

• A  'Jeff' chair from Ikea.
• A can of Krylon Fusion for Plastic in Black.
• Masking tape.
• Cheap Lace Runner and Tablecloth.

Firstly I taped up the parts of the chair I didn't want to paint:

My first big mistake was not having a big enough piece of lace. I decided to improvise and have a lacy strip down the middle of the chair back, like this:

I don't have a picture of how the chair looked with just the middle bit done. It wasn't terrible, but I decided it would look better with the whole thing lacy... because I am a doofus.  With a bit of jiggery-tape-ery I added more lace and more paint.

So, that's why the top part looks terrible. The seat is a whole 'nother set of mistakes. Firstly of all I used a different pattern of lace (what was I thinking!), and the holes in the lace were just too big. I also really should have attached it more firmly, either with better tape or with re-positionable spray adhesive, 'cause I got these weird runckly stripes.

So that's what went wrong. On the plus side I now know that the Krylon Paint works a treat and at least the chair is still sit-on-able. I do think that the theory is good. I just fumbled the execution.

I think I am going to just spray the whole thing black and start again using white paint on the black background. I'll keep you posted if it works out.

The top photo from here

August 12, 2008

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About: Decorating on a teeny budget is my thing. Recycling and Reusing and Repurposing are my...

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