So, I know its hard to believe, but I haven't always had so much time to craft and create. At least not with fabric. Ages ago, I used to work for a high end furniture store that specialized in wicker and rattan. Because of that job, I have some beautiful pieces of wicker furniture in my home. Fast forward to last summer, and while grandchildren were visiting, a certain grandson, who will remain nameless, picked at an area of cracked wicker on one of my white wicker daybeds, even though I begged him to leave it alone. Sadly, he created a lovely hole right in the back of the daybed. Luckily, pillows can cover this hole but when those pillows are removed, YIKES, it looks bad!
While working for that particular wicker furniture store, I also used to help repair some of the pieces of wicker. After watching a refresher video on how to repair wicker furniture found HERE , I set about repairing that gaping hole in the daybed.
You might wonder why even bother repairing a wicker daybed? Firstly, this daybed is beautiful and classic in design. Secondly, my biggest motivation is that my oldest daughter just purchased her first home. When I redecorated her, and her twin sister's, bedroom long after they moved out, we put one of these daybeds in our storage area. Yes, I own two of these daybeds. When cousins came to visit, we'd have a dormitory using the trundle beds, that were stored below these daybeds, filled with cute girls. I told my oldest daughter that she could have her daybed for my granddaughter's new bedroom. Needless to say, my daughter was delighted to get one of these beautiful bed frames.
The hardest part about this project was finding half round real wicker reeds to repair the hole in the back of the daybed. I had to order mine from a store I found online called Frank's Cane and Rush Supply. I couldn't find a way to place the order online so on a Friday morning, I placed my order the old fashion way and called the company on the phone. The owner answered & I gave him my order. They have amazing service because I received my order three days later in Monday's mail. YEA for fast service!
Anyway, onto how I made that daybed good again:
The first step was to soak the reeds in warm water for at least 30 minutes. I soaked mine in the bathtub for several days... let's just say I may have forgotten about them.
Next, remove enough wet reeds to repair your wicker.
The size of reeds I purchased were a little larger than what I needed so using scissors, I cut the wet reeds down to the size of the original reeds.
Then working from the back of the daybed, I snipped off the existing wicker pieces so that they ended behind the horizontal reeds. Then I started to weave the reeds in and out keeping the pattern as close as possible to the original weave.
This is what the front of the daybed looked like once I was finished weaving:
I let the wicker dry for several days. Then I laid down old towels in front of the area I was going to paint and behind that same area. After shaking the can vigorously, I sprayed the wicker from the front of the wicker. I had to repeat that process four times.
Beware, the spray paint is super stinky so make sure when you spray, you do it on a nice, non-windy day with the windows wide open. You don't want any wind to blow dust or particles onto what you're spay painting.
This is how that repaired wicker daybed looks - like new again!
I'm grateful I was challenged to repair something because now this daybed is finally ready to be passed onto the next generation of children in my life.
Tomorrow, please join Julia at Sum of Their Stories. Julia lives in the United Kingdom and comes from a long line of crafty women.
No comments:
Post a Comment