Craft Room Stool

I hope everyone had a great weekend. Mine went by so fast! My husband and I took a long hike up in the hills for a spectacular view of the valley. It was cold, but the sun was shining and I got my first sunburn of the year. It's a rite of spring for me. 

Today, I'm sharing another craft room project. 

 In my old craft room, my stool was covered with bright ruffles of fabric that felt too colorful for my new neutral craft room. 

Ruffled Slipcover

So I removed the ruffled slipcover and was planning on painting the stool with some green chevron stripes to match my window valance.

Then I saw this cute red and white checkered stool painted by Anne at Design Dreams by Anne and fell in love with it.

Design Dreams by Anne

Since I love to mix patterns, I decided to go with checks. 

I sanded, primed, and painted my stool white and let it dry overnight. Then I mixed a few drops of gray, blue, green and black craft paint into some white latex for the checkered squares. I followed Anne's tutorial and photos for taping the checkered pattern with painter's tape and used a short piece of the one inch tape to space the rows equally apart.

I painted the first squares and took the tape off without letting it dry. I'm a cutter-inner, not a taper, and I'm never quite sure if I should take the tape off before the paint dries, or after. Either way, I'm never very successful at having clean edges, and this was no exception. Good thing I was going for a shabby chic look with the emphasis on the shabby!

 I let the paint dry for a few hours, then taped over the first part in the same way and painted the rest of the squares.  

After that was good and dry, I distressed the seat and legs with medium sandpaper and waxed everything with two coats of clear wax. 

Here's my little checkered stool in my craft room. 

One of these days, unless one of those awesome Pottery Barn wooden office chairs with wheels falls in my lap, I'm going to try making a slip cover for my big ugly office chair.

But you know how it is; so many projects, so little time!

I hope you're having a great day, and thanks for spending a bit of it with me!  

It's party time! C'mon along!

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