G-Plan furniture was produced from 1953, post-war. As with a lot of mass-produced furniture of the time, there was a lot of style, but with very little substance due to rationing.
Here is one of four chairs I purchased last year.
Before
I love the shape of this chair. It has a lovely curved back and simply curved legs. It is very comfortable, if not a little low. That takes getting used to when you first sit down on it. The vinyl seat is quite hideous. I paid £30 for four chairs. I purchased them from a second-hand shop. The guy who delivered them to me was a bit peeved that his wife sold them to me for that price as they can go for more. Why, I have no idea. I guess some people really go for the retro look. This might have been produced in the 60′s or 70′s when Danish style furniture was very popular. Although sturdy, there really is not much to this chair. Although rationing was over, the manufacturing process hadn’t changed much. You can read more about G-Plan furniture here.
This is what I did to the chairs last summer:
During
I lightly sanded and painted the chairs with 2 coats of Zinsser B-I-N primer. Then I painted with two coats of white emulsion and sanded and distressed them a little. They got new foam and covers. The green matches exactly a shade of green in my striped curtains similar to those here. I had the pink fabric already, but was not really happy with it as I felt it was a bit too bright.
Last week I painted my fireplace in ASCP (Annie Sloan Chalk Paint). You can read about it here. I had some leftover paint made up with Scandinavian Pink and Old White and thought I would use it to repaint my chairs as the bright white chairs weren’t really working anymore.
This is how they came out:
After
Please excuse the poor quality of the light. It was practically non-existent as it has been wanting to snow all day. We had some flurries. I kept the green seat and bought some more curtain fabric to cover two chairs. The pink on the chairs matches the pink in the curtains. I am really happy with how these turned out. The Scandinavian pink is not too bright and the chairs look more in keeping with the house.
What I did:
I had some leftover pink in Hydrangea (1 part Scandinavian Pink to 2 parts Old White) in a salsa jar which I just topped up with Scandinavian Pink. I used this as my first coat. For my second coat, I used the Scandinavian Pink straight out of the can but did not cover the whole chair in it. I started a section with the brush lightly loaded with paint and then dry brushed to the edges. This picked up some brush marks from the first coat and made some interesting patterns. There was not too much of a colour contrast so it didn’t matter if the second coat didn’t cover the chair completely.
When the paint was dry, I put a light coat of wax all over the chair. I worked on one chair at a time. As I waxed a section, I wiped off the excess. I used my wiping cloth to wipe over areas underneath the chair that would not be seen. This sealed the paint. Once I applied my first coat of wax, I used medium grade sandpaper and started to sand down sections to smooth and distress the paint. There is less dust if you sand immediately after the first coat of wax.
After the chair was sanded, I vacuumed the paint dust on the chair and around. Then I wiped down the chair with a couple of baby wipes before applying another light coat of wax and leaving to dry overnight. In the morning, I buffed the waxed chairs to get rid of the stickiness, which left it with a light sheen and replaced the seats.
A note about distressing painted furniture:
I have been painting furniture for years. For me, the whole idea of painting furniture is the fact that you can transform a crappy old piece of furniture into a thing of beauty. You can make a piece look modern and contemporary or like an antique, just with some clever use of paint. I am not precious about wood, especially mass-produced pieces of furniture. One needs to know where to draw the line about what to paint. For example, I would never paint my Arts and Crafts oak dressing table, but I would, and will, paint a newly purchased, mass-produced, oak bedside table.
That said, I see many people out there in the blogosphere using ASCP and then go a bit heavy-handed with the sandpaper. It boggles my mind. First of all, the paint is EXPENSIVE. What is the point of using expensive paint on a piece of furniture and then sanding most of it off to see the rubbish wood that you painted over in the first place? My advice is to use a bit of restraint and distress in areas that would get normal wear and tear or to show off some relief in the woodwork.
In Annie Sloan’s book Quick and Easy Paint Transformations , the only piece that has been remotely heavily distressed was the rustic table, and that was to match the old chair. That chair is a fine example of natural wear on paint and what gives a piece some character.
I recommend buying the book as there are many great ideas on how to use the paint. I had a pleasant afternoon reading it from cover to cover while waiting for paint to dry!
Really cool!