My Grammy gave me money to buy an antique. After months of careful deliberation I decided to get a carved wood love-seat. I suppose they are a little out of style these days (boo mid-century modern, you’re a trend too). I found one for the right price on Apartment Therapy Classifieds (go to there). It had a lovely all-be-it faded brocade and a pretty floppy down seat that didn’t really fit with my apartment. I was trying to bring some class to the place, but not THAT much class.
So I decided to reupholster the thing with canvas, cause you know I’m a painter (and we love self-referential stuff). So, I’m a handy girl and stretching canvas is something I’m pretty familiar with. Ok, reupholstering is more work then I thought, but it wasn’t a disaster. See picture.
Beautiful right? Why didn’t I just stop there? Because I have this terrible impulse to put paint on canvas and be “artsy” (I also have this fear of color that I’ve been fighting the past 2 years by forcing myself to get really colorful things). So then I was all, “what if I did this cool water color look.” Great idea right? I like to think it would have been had I not bought all the supplies for that and then decided to do something more painterly (i.e. thicker paint and visible brush strokes). So armed with some fabric medium, acrylic paint, a Japanese ink brush, and 5 different conflicting game plans I endeavored to tastefully paint this couch. See picture. Should I back up here and say its really not that bad an idea to paint a couch as long as you heavily dilute the paint and sand afterwards? Sanding is key to having a soft couch that and not using house paint like a freak.
So from the minute I put that paint to couch I was on disaster control. And like a little kid who cut their own hair I just kept going and going. Finally the entire couch was covered in this hokey cerulean color. I was horrified, but still unwilling to throw in the towel and re-re-upholster.
I gave it more thought and decided to use this blue as a background to a pattern alla early Piet Mondrian.
This is the finished product. Its still not my favorite color and I still wish I had kept it white, but it’s no longer an eyesore. I guess it has an anthro vibe (I know, where is the inexplicable teapot built into the leg of the couch)
Mary Bloch 