Before and after chalk painted furniture and guest room

I think I've just about finished redecorating for this winter and now I'm going to get out and start tidying the flower and herb beds! I've been out for precisely one walk this year on a non windy, sunny day, so I'm rather itchy to get out more. I have been exercising once a week in the little gym at my physios, which I think is starting to help a teeny bit. I saw a pain doctor last week and he wants me to start doing balneotherapie (amongst a large list of other things which I doubt they do at my physios, like having mud treatment!). However, they do have a mini pool for that kind of exercise at the physios, but whether they can fit me in for 3 sessions a week I rather doubt it, as they are run off their feet and seem to be seeing multiple patients at the same time. Whatever, in the summer at least I can do those exercises at home. Yes, I still have pain, both from the mesh from the hernia repair and from an on and off over the years tendonitis problem in my thigh, which the pain doctor declared was sciatica; I don't agree but he wasn't the kind of person who listens and liked to talk and shout a lot.

This wasn't meant to be a health update, just to show some piccies of my furniture and guest room now that they are finished! So let's get on with it....

The Before of the pine chest of drawers in the guest room:

After:

I have to say I'm rather chuffed with it - the headboard and then this chest were the first pieces of furniture that I have painted with chalk paint - up to now I've just been practicing on things like picture frames, plant pots and lamp shades. I finished the painted chest in clear wax, then put dark wax in the few nooks and crannies to give an aged look. It doesn't show up so well in my phone photos indoors, but I'm sure you get the picture. 😀

Here's a picture of the wall that I painted, with the furniture mostly back in place. I'm just leaving the mattress out from the headboard until the wax is fully cured, which can take up to a month. This isn't the bed that goes with the bedhead, ours is much higher and once the pillows are in place it will be more or less hidden, but I wanted it painted. I also painted the picture frame above. That is the picture which inspired the autumnal colouring I chose in our last few bedrooms. It's of a ripe wheatfield with wild flowers including poppies in it. Actually I wish it were a bit bigger now as it looks a bit lost here, but heck, it's a guest room and I don't have to look at it every day. 😁

I also painted the lamp shades a few years ago and decorated the bases with thick sisal string. The one thing that is not going to be painted are our cherry coloured bedside tables, which we've had since we lived in London and I love them just as they are. But I think the mix of dark and painted wood looks rather nice. There is a chest at the end of the bed which I'm thinking of painting the same as the other furniture, but sanding back the lid and restaining/varnishing in a cherry wood tint.

Now we're going upstairs to my dressing room. Yes, I have my own dressing room. It was my dream, and we really don't need two guest bedrooms any more, so I chose the smallest bedroom and it was furnished with Ikea's Pax system. Pax is absolutely brilliant as they have so many different choices for the interior organisation, from glass fronted drawers, to pull out shoe racks, to pull out jewellery tray organisers. However I had an old very dark brown chest of drawers in there which came from my mum (when I say old, I mean from the 80s, not antique!!) and whilst I liked it as it was, I also wanted to paint it. I already had a few things in duck egg blue in there and that's the colour I wanted to paint it. Here's a really crappy before pic with a very blurry black cat as well.

And now:

I dry brushed over the Duck Egg with Svenska Blue, which is a very similar colour, and as I didn't have any white wax I did the same effect as with the beige chest of drawers but using Old White paint, watered down, then wiped back so it stuck into the crevices just like wax does. It's not supposed to be all neat and perfect, the look is rustic. Well, that's what I am calling it. 😀 The top didn't look right with the dry brushing though so I just repainted over in Duck Egg. All Annie Sloan Chalk Paints.

The dressing room: I have loads of clothes because my clothing size has changed so many times since having cancer and I'm not throwing anything away! I had to buy more small clothes after having bought large ones and throwing the small ones away (to charity), what with moving and all that. So now I'm banned from getting rid of any clothes anyway 😀 so I need this space!

I took some slightly better photos today, as when I took the ones above the light was too bright coming through the window to get the top without it being totally blown out. I put the light on for these ones and the paint looks a bit more like the colour that it is.

It's not 'staged' 😀 because I want the top to cure before I put the mirror and plant etc back on top, and I left it up on blocks for a few days whilst it was curing.

Spring has definitely sprung here with the wild almond blossom out all over the countryside and K reports the wood anemones are flowering down in a sheltered spot in a valley where he goes for his long walks. I have daffies flowering on the terrace and in fact have had to water all my large pots around the pool terrace as we hardly had any rain in February! I saw a Small Tortoiseshell butterfly about two weeks ago, K saw some on his walk on Sunday and I saw a little blue one in our garden a few days ago. Aaah, I do love my flutterbies and look forward to them finding my nectar bar this year. 💜