I mentioned in passing a few months ago that a family from our church gave me a French daybed for free. It was in their basement playroom and I spotted it when we were over at their house one day. I have a habit (and I'm not sure if it's good or bad) of commenting on the decor and furniture in people's homes. So, in classic Marian fashion, I just spewed out, "This is a really, really great piece."
A few weeks later, my friend called with a "proposition for me", as she put it. She gives me the French daybed for free and I get a free French daybed. That's the kind of trade I cannot refuse. It's been sitting in my family room since then, waiting for a makeover, and the lure became too strong to resist this weekend.
This is sort of how it looked when I got it. It had different pillows on it and fewer holes in the caning, but you get the general idea. It is wood, but it was painted in a faux graining, so I really wanted to repaint it.
And here is how it looks now...
The first thing I had to tackle was the holes in the caning. I was planning to recane the piece, but after my kids kicked additional holes in it and picked at them until they were ridiculously large, I decided that would be a source of frustration for me.
Although I really, really wanted to have a cane back, I decided to upholster it instead. I removed the old cane by cutting it with an Xacto knife.
Once the cane was removed, I painted the frame in Annie Sloan's Old White. The "bed" part of the daybed was removable, so it made the painting step very simple. I decided to upholster it in ultra durable antique grain sacks, so I cut them and patched them together to fit in a way that looked nice. I then stapled the fabric to the underside of the frame.
I'm still working out the pillows, but I will definitely be using some of my new Ralph Lauren green pillows that two wonderful readers found and shipped to me.
More to come this week on my kitchen sources, paint colors, and the answer to the question that has been burning in the minds of many readers...
"Did you paint the inside of your cabinets and cabinet doors?"
