How to shabby chic your garden furniture ... in one afternoon.

Well it's spring (almost) and at this time of year we all head out into the garden and stand hand-on-hips accessing the winter damage, and ponder how to bring our gardens back to life. What I want is a pretty summery haven, what I have is some shabby-looking furniture in dire need of some TLC. I can't afford to replace everything but nor would I want to. So before you raid your money box and head down to Homebase I have two words for you ... 

SHABBY CHIC!!

Choosing your SHABBY CHIC colours ...

We love having distressed rustic furniture inside the house but it looks even better in the garden! 

and  thanks to our hectic weather cycle mother nature does most of the distressing for us. 

When choosing colours there's nothing to stop you from using two colours. My shed was already a pale blue, so applying one coat of pale green on top worked perfectly, allowing the blue to poke through a little. To get this effect make your first coat a pale blue and your second a pale green. Just make sure your first coat has always fully dried.

You will need ...

Paint 

(I used 1 litre of wood paint in 'Willow' from Homebase)

Sandpaper

Paintbrush

Old clothes!

What to do ...

1.  Give it a quick wipe down with a damp tea towel.

2. Give it a once over with some sandpaper to loosen any flakey bits.

3.  Splosh your paint on! (I didn't bother with underneath the bench, who looks there??)

4. When dry give it a second coat. Since my she was already blue I only gave it one coat of green.

5 When it's dry carefully distress your paint by sandpapering the edges and corners. 

Before 

After

While I was painting the bench my niece kayleigh worked on my ladder.

 I love this little ladder, it's handy and would make a fab flower pot stand ... thats a project for another day! It only needed one coat and took all of 30 minutes to paint.

Before

After

The shed looked like this before. I loved it's shabby look but wanted a change of colour.

Before

 So I gave it one coat with this lovely sage green (willow ....) 

After

It's amazing how a coat of paint can bring a garden to life. Make an afternoon of it and invite your family / friends round for a catch up and painting day, OR don't tell them and stick a paintbrush in their hand on arrival like I did : ) if they love you they won't mind! though Kayleigh doesn't seem to want to come round again....? strange.

JM x