Last week, it was major crunch time for us to get our antique tv ready for our presentation at the Writers House on Wednesday!
Held back by…a ridiculously difficult to remove monitor! Jenny spent a frustrating day getting it out:
Just needed a little more painting around the black frame still marked by primer and a plastic fish tank!
We brought our chair to the Kelly Writers House Night of the Living Room event, a brief program dedicated to showcasing what Tim and I have been up to so far!
A huge surprise for Jenny — upholstered chairs have LOTS of staples. We brought our chair along to see if we could inspire any brave souls to help us pull out a few of the jillion staples in this thing.
It still needs some work….
Check out photos from last Wednesday’s presentation Tim and I put together for the Kelly Writers House!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kellywritershouse/sets/72157629383325930/with/7048571501/
…all the rage with the kids these days!
Time to get our antique tv a new paint job.
First, a trip to Lowe’s to grab some paint supplies:
Paint Primer
For a sponge effect with the second color
The paints: Sea Isle and French Riviera. Think we got the water tones nailed down.
Painting wood like this requires a base layer of primer. I used some white spray-on primer that’s good for all surfaces. Here’s the before and after:
Before
After: Ghostly White!
Then, I painted on two layers of “Sea Isle” and sponged on “French Riviera”. Better pics in the day time coming up soon!
At least one of us looks presentable...
After 2 coats...
Sponged!
What We Were Working With:
The television is actually detachable (not easily, but we’ll make it happen) and is surrounded by a great case made of smooth, unmarked wood!
The Ideas:
Jenny: Aquarium! Aquarium! Aquarium! Let’s turn the monitor into the front of a fish tank!!!
Tim: I don’t wanna mess with the residue from all that electrical stuff back there…
The innards
Jenny: Uhhh, okay, that sounds good.
(Side note: Apparently, cathode rays…which are installed in all types of monitors of this sort…can EXPLODE if removed improperly)
Tim: How about a desk? We can cut out this bottom piece and turn these into faux drawers.
Jenny: No! No! NO! I WANT AN AQUARIUM!
What We’re Doing With It:
Aquarium.
But instead of using the monitor, we’ll be building our own plastic tank, made possible thanks to Tim’s nifty plastic bonding super powers. I’ll be painting the exterior some ocean blue colors, and my wonderful friends Chandler Klein and Gary Kafer will be illustrating a sea-scape around the tank!
With the chain installed, it was up to me to figure out how to re-upholster this chair. But re-upholstery (surprisingly) isn’t my forte. So I decided to gut the chair and replace a lot of the cushioning with wooden slats. Here’s the gutting part at least:
How it started out...
Whoops, there goes the back!
Weapon of Choice: Exacto Knife
All done...sitting high and mighty in my porch's corner
Chain, chain, chain…we sure got some links in our chain 😉 (really hoping other people listen to Aretha Franklin…)
Anyway….
Before we could get some chains into our chair, Tim and I sliced some of the fabric off to see if we were working with some solid pieces of wood.
Chair Rippin'
Chair sturdiness testin'?
After the shenanigans, Tim installed two sets of chains to each side of the chair by drilling four thick bolts into each corner of the wooden base. Can’t wait to see this baby hanging up!
The chains installed!
Closeup
How the chain links up!
What We Were Working With:
This antique chair had apparently seen its fair share of butts, antique stores, and excitable dogs. There was a busted leg and a few scratches along some of the exposed wood. But the chair was solid, and really comfy…once you got used to the odd tilt.
Tim's thinking outfit.
The Ideas:
I just wanted to fix it and turn it back into a chair…
Tim’s ideas: Rocking chair! What if we flipped it over? Hmmm, ok, porch swing! (Ladies, the guy is a genius)
What We’re Doing with It:
Turning it into a porch swing! We’ll be inserting chains into the arms of the chair and sawing off its lil’ stub legs. To deal with the outdated upholstery and the fact that it’ll hopefully be hanging outside (unless one of its future owner is very casual about ceiling holes), we’ll be stripping it down, throwing some wooden slats along the seat and back, and attempting to re-upholster the rest!
Thanks to some Kelly Writers House paint and a few CVS paint brushes…and most importantly, the help of my generous, gracious, and patient friend Sarah Hendry, the porch piece was transformed!
Ingredients:
Some busted up porch…
How it Started Out: Dull, Chipped, Needy
A bucket of leftover paint stored in a basement…
The Writers House's Green Trim Paint
Some brushes, a willing friend, and you’re ready to get to work:
Seeing Green!
Many thanks to Sarah for her help!
Voila!
This’ll be a short one… because high school physics still brings up bad memories of electricity and circuits and directions and Ohms…OHMygod.
So, to insert the lights we snagged during a trip to Lowe’s, Tim carved out some slots on the back side of the smaller wooden curved pieces and then we temporarily taped them in. Pictures might explain this better 😉
The Notches
Attaching the Lights
Furniture Hack 