Georgia Peaches's blog: "Poems"

Hidden Surprises

My Grandmother gave me a chair before she passed away. A hideous white thing, with a horrible gloss coating... and I kept it proudly in my room and adored it. The top rung of the back of the chair was broken, and still is, but that's beside the point... the point is, I decided now that we moved that I want to re-do the chair and paint it and make it into a Bettie Page chair for my living room. How fitting..

So today, doped up on some pain medication I decided after dinner to spend some time sanding the chair...

I began on the top rung... I started sanding, through the gloss, and this eggshell white... then there was an ivory color... And then an odd yellow, like old crusty mustard... and then the wood appeared... It was magical.. I was covered in white and yellow dust, and here was this beautiful chair emerging from under years and years of paint...

So I got tired of sanding the same area, and moved to the back poles of the chair... to see the same pattern, gloss... Eggshell... ivory... mustard... wood..

The wood was dark, but upon sanding it down it turned a lovely shade of pink.. like salmon.

After an hour of that, I got tired... so I thought, "I wonder what the seat was like..."

Now, for those of you that I've told about this chair, my plan was to paint it red or black, I hadn't decided... and I was still debating as I was sanding... And I start on the side of the seat... sanding through the mustard color.. When what do I see? A hint of red...

Red.

What?! Red?! I move and start sanding the middle of the seat... and lo! There is this gorgeous deep red color of paint that comes through instead of the mustard...

At one point in time, this ugly white chair had been a mustard and red chair... then ivory.. then eggshell and gloss..

I took finding the red as a sign from above (or my Grandma, at least) that the chair should be restored fully to red. I will take pictures of it's progress tomorrow.. and throughout its transformation... I cannot wait to see how beautiful this will be..

I'm very excited. I'll be refooting the chair, fixing the top rung, and sanding it. This is my project.. and what better way to burn calories and do something productive?

... it just goes to show you that you never know what lies beneath the surface.. and what may look ugly on the outside could have a fabulous history and beautiful interior..

You just need a little elbow grease and some love to bring its inner beauty out.