Over the years, I’ve amassed a lot of nice furniture and artwork. My mom is an Interior Designer, so I’ve made good use of her to-the-trade discounts, her own personal cast-offs and her gifts of art over the years. And my father, well, years ago, he decided to down-size, which meant selling his NYC apartment, which he hardly ever used. I got fist dibs. I walked away with a set of 12 dining chairs, a glass and metal dining table and some other pieces. Over the years, many of those pieces have been passed on to others, but we kept the chairs. They’re good chairs, and chairs are costly. Good ones, anyhow. But over time, the majority of them ended up in the crawl-space.

And so, I had an idea a few days ago, to start painting and reupholstering them myself. The instructions that I found on various websites made it seem so easy. And furniture paint in a spray-paint can? How much easier could it be?

A lot. Although there is a learning curve with the first of anything new, right? It gets easier as you go… I hope.

I’m still on my first chair. It’s been sanded, taken apart, painted twice and almost completely reupholstered in an Amy Butler print that I’ve had lying around for ages. I’m planning on making the finished chair a mate, an exact replica, and then using them as desk chairs for the girls in their little homework area (which, yes, I know is years away, but as a public space in our home, I’m just trying to get it there). My hands are all cut up, but the chair is starting to look like a real chair! A pretty chair! It’s been a bit of work, you could say. By the time it’s finished, I’d say about a day, maybe a day and a half. But so worth it. New life to an old and tired piece of furniture! Yeah, me! I’d been fantasizing about getting rid of the chairs, replacing them with new ones, but in the end? I worked with what I had. Made gorgeous out of so-so. And it cost me a grand total of under $8, for the two cans of Navajo White Gloss Spray Paint.

I didn’t grow up in a house of do-it-yourselfers. My mom was the ultimate shopper. I mean, it’s her job to shop. For other people, sure, but still. It carried over into her personal life. She is the penultimate consumer. A smart one, yes, but still, a great spender of money. So it never occurred to me that I could do this stuff: sew, knit, reupholster furniture. But I can! And to find that out? It’s so satisfying and opens up a whole new world of possibilities. And yes, I realize that sounds kind of… I’m not even sure of the word that I’m looking for… intense? I don’t know. But I do know that those pieces of furniture scattered around our house… the armoire from my parents first home together, the nightstand I swiped from my mother’s guest room, the mahogany sleigh bed from my own childhood? Suddenly, I see them in a new light, with a fresh coat of paint, perhaps a nice lacquer. And voila! New furniture! Our furniture! Not someone else’s discards…

It’s another nice day out today. I’m pretty sure you’ll find me in the driveway, covered in a layer of finely sanded wood and a mist of spray paint.