Anna Karenina and Annie Sloan and Shabby Chic Chair

 “If you look for perfection, you'll never be content.”
―Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

I was sooooo bored today!

I mean I love Walla Walla but Saturday evening in Walla Walla is not something particularly exciting.
So, I was sitting on my couch, watching Anna Karenina but today I simply didn't have enough patience for all of that drama. Don't get me wrong, I love the story and I respect it as one of the biggest masterpieces.

I'm not sure if I want to say that I am lucky because I was educated in Croatia, so Anna Karenina was one of the books which was on our mandatory literature list. Being 16 or 17 and trying to understand what Leo Tolstoy wanted to say was quite challenging. But I guess I'm glad that I can say that I read the book and that I'm thinking about re-reading it now when I'm a bit older.

Anyway, great book, very good movie but today I just wasn't in the mood for old aristocratic Russia, lack equality when it comes to women and men, unfortunate love, and so on and so on.

But couple of pieces of furniture that I saw in the movie reminded me of the chair that I re-did couple of days ago. It doesn't look like it just came from Russia but it's is Shabby Chic chair, and since France was mecca of fashion and style at that time, there you go, train of thought..

Here's finished chair. Scroll down for instructions!

And here it is! I'm so sorry because my pictures are such a low quality but I still don't have professional camera, so I have to do everything with my poor iPhone.

To paint this chair I used Annie Sloan Chalk Paint that I've got from my friend Sam couple months ago. Thank you Sam! :D She also gave me a chair and re-upholstered it.

These are the colors that I used:

Greek Blue, Old White, Dark Wax

If you don't know how to create this look you can order Annie Sloan's "Creating the French Look" book. I have it but I don't really use it because I always find my inspiration somewhere else. You can also visit Annie Sloan Pinterest site.
What I like about these paints is that you don't have to sand or use primer with them. You can just apply it directly on wood, plastic, stone, and so on.

Old, ugly, brown chair

So on the picture above there is a chair before I repainted it in Greek Blue, and then I realized that I don't like that chair in that color... It was too... Too blah...

Chair in Greek Blue

And then I decided to repaint it in Old White, but to leave parts which are "inside" the chair in blue. Unfortunately I don't have picture from that stage, since all of a sudden I decided to add some blue accents and to paint back side of front legs in Clark+Kensington Decadent Blue.
After the paint dried I used soft sand paper to distress some parts.

I still didn't like it after that so I grabbed Dark Soft Wax because I wanted chair to look like it was used before, and we all know how fast white gets dirty.Even though they suggest using Clear Soft Wax prior the Dark Wax I liked it this way better.

Here are the results:

Picture is a bit too bright to see details.

You can be messy!

 

And finally! That was the look that I was searching for.

What do you think? :) Big difference!

When trying to do something like this, just keep in mind the quote from the beginning of this post, and trust me, your life will be easier! :)