Hey Nancy,
What do I do with them?
About 20 years ago I did the first one when I was teaching. It was an old chair that had been donated to our Fine Arts department for stage property. It had seen better days and was in disrepair, so I wood glued it all back together so that it wasn't an accident waiting to happen and thought just for fun I'd paint it. Once done other teachers saw it and wanted to buy it. So I sold it to one of them and added the money to the Fine Arts fund.
Then I started getting requests for painted chairs and began to pick up old chairs wherever I could find them and began to paint them at home. Seems they made nice retirement gifts, birthday gifts, things like that. I probably did maybe 20 or so chairs over a few years' time and since they were fun to do, I just kept on painting. I had lots of flowers to choose a design from. So it was a little business at home.
I never had one long enough to keep them at home for myself. Sometimes people would bring a table and want it painted to match the chair. Things like that. Then I retired and was going to paint more, but Bob died and things changed and I didn't get back into it. Till now.
I posted the barstool on Facebook yesterday and have several offers on it already, but I want to get a few more done along with a garden bench and maybe a couple of terra cotta pots to match, a table or two, and see where that takes me. I'm always into something.
But no, the only things I have that I kept over the years, are two table tops that were done in '94. I usually put the date on them, so I just looked. Those table tops have old wildflowers in the middle design, old plants that I grew up with, so I'm not likely to part with them. They are among the first furniture pieces I did. I don't mind selling my things, and I've given a few pieces away too. I can always paint another one, so I don't get very attached.
Thanks Nancy. I'm glad you like the barstool.
And the checkered paint is my own secret invention.
It works the same way as the painted pansies. heh!!
