My unique DIY dining stool.

So I started with a Frosta stool from IKEA.

I knew that what our colour scheme was going to be. The kitchen is black and antique white with touches of silver. There will also be touches of gold in the general decor. So with that in mind, I planned a black table and then I wanted black on the stools with touches of antique white, silver, gold. I found so many materials that I liked, that I figured I would use them all! So there will be 12 finished over the next few days / a week so I will post them as I do them.

First step was painting the legs black. I also painted the underside black too.

We used the paint that the paint store recommended and we had NO end of issues with it! It bubbled and cracked and stripped itself off. Nightmare! In the end I've just left it, and I might we do it again later. The table was even worse! My poor patient husband has sanded back and painted the table top about 3 times now? I'm waving my flag in defeat and we will just brush the paint on instead.

Next step was putting foam on because I have a sensitive behind, so I wanted cushioning. So I went to Clark Rubber and got foam cylinders (which they called circles, I resisted the urge to correct them!) Foam is not cheap! But my backside will appreciate it (hopefully!)

I sprayed adhesive on the stool and the foam and stuck them together.

For the covering, I spent many hours trawling the internet finding material that I liked. There was nothing in the local stores. I finally found paydirt on fabric.com. I got a variety of patterns and fabrics. The best thing about having the different materials is that if I have to recover one, I don't have to match it!

So this actually took longer than I expected. I used a staple gun and LOTS of time!

So here is the first of the final products! This was a flocked damask.

I'm sill painting...

So I actually did this on Christmas Eve, but I've been busy doing other stuff (some of which you'll see in the not too distant future!)

Once the window frames were done, I then filled the holes in the window frame using plaster. They were then sanded.

I painted these using water based enamel, which was so much easier to clean up than normal enamel! It is meant to be black, which it technically is, but it's actually slightly lighter than the window frames. But, we are ok with that, it's like a very dark charcoal.

So post painting, here it is!

From a distance...

Project to come include: covering the new dining stools, painting the new dining table and painting and tiling the backsplash.

The story so far...

My patient, forgiving, amazing husband and I have been renovating our house for about 9 months so far.

I figured I might start a blog to track our progress, a little late, but there is still PLENTY to do and lots of decorating (which is my favourite part!!!)

This is what we started with... (keep in mind these are real estate agent photos, so the house has NEVER actually look as good as these photos would have you believe. Scary, isn't it?) Trust me, the house was not as light and airy and spacious as these photos imply. The kitchen was full when one person stood in there.

Our main aims are to open the house up a bit to give it a more spacious feel and also drag the house into the 21st century.

First we knocked out the walls that were boxing the kitchen in and stopping the nautral light getting into the dining area.

We also knocked out the top half of the wall that separated the front lounge from the entry.

We actually changed our minds and ended up filling in half of the top part in the above photo, because we decided to move the pantries onto this wall. So we went with a full length wall, half way between there the full wall ends and the half wall ends.

There was lots of fixing up plaster and cornice. I'm becoming quite the expect at cutting cornice!

We gutted the kitchen and had all the plumbing moved and the gas plumbed in for the new cooker. Then we plastered it all back up!

Then many hard hours later, we had a kitchen with a temporary benchtop! I really wanted lots of pot drawers, which we got. My husband wasn't really convinced about the port drawers.

We also got rid of the ugly big brown glass sliding door that was in the middle of the house. It will be replaced with silver aluminium bifold zone doors.

Then there was painting. We even had helpers!!!

Then some pantries! We went with 3 60cm pantries with pull out drawers, which I am still in love with!

We then laid our cherry bamboo flooring in the kitchen/dining area, as we wanted a waterfall end bench top, so the floor had to be in first. It took us about a day and a half to get the flooring laid in the entry, kitchen and dining area.

Then the other week, we got our bench top!!

Sparkle, sparkle!!

Today, I painted the hideous mission brown powder coated aluminium window frames gloss black! I primed using an etch primer and then painted using black gloss kill rust.

Then we are caught up to now really! It doesn't seem like much when I write it down, but given we are only doing work 1 day of the weekend, and we are juggling that with children here in school holidays and also other family / friend commitments, I think we've done alright for novice renovators!

The only things we've not done ourselves are the plumbing/electrical and the stone benchtop. Other than that, it's ALL us :)