WHIMSICAL PEONY CAGE

 In the past, I have painted a vintage chair with French blue paint, taken out the seat  and planted a pot of vibrant blue and pink annuals.  I found a picture on Pinterest that showed a similar chair used as a peony cage.  How intriguing! 

 

I have 8 peony cages already and use them in my perennial bed.  I noticed that the original peony plants were spreading through the flower bed.  I didn't have enough cages, so I thought I would try my hand at one of the chair cages. 

 

From beginning to end, sanding to installing the chair, it took me 2 hours.

Now there is a back story here.  I ran over to Wal-Mart to grab a quart French Blue paint.  Has anyone ever experienced ordering paint and not having it not come out the correct color?  I never have.  When the service person  first showed me the color on the lid, I was shocked.  I watched him put the correct color code into the computer and the color that resulted was a muddier shade of the anticipated color.

On the picture below, the first attempted color is the one in the paint sample circle.  The service person was very nice and suggested upping the blue and violet in the next attempt, I'm sure to keep me a satisfied customer.  In no way was it his fault from the beginning, so I was happy that he was willing to spend time with the paint to give me a satisfying result.  After 30 minutes of blending, shaking and drying the paint swatches, I didn't have the heart to tell him that I didn't want the paint.  After all, it was just for a shabby project anyway.  I told him how much I appreciated his efforts and purchased the paint.  The finished shade was close enough and it wasn't like I was going to use the paint on a house project.

 

 

Pulling out the chair from the garage, I also picked up the ....



saw to quickly get rid of the damaged cane seat.  This took less than 5 minutes.

Now I was back on schedule.  It wasn't a perfect job, but for the needed purpose, I was happy.

I did a very quick rough sanding which took about 20 minutes.

 Because I was putting it outside, I knew the exposure would crack and chip the paint faster, so I didn't bother to put a coat of primer on first.

I am almost embarrassed to say, but I slapped a coat of the paint on the chair.  I loved it!  Now isn't it funny how the creating of this paint color caused such a consternation?  I am convinced that there was divine intervention from the Holy Spirit to make the color perfect.  Thank you!!!!

 



The color is not that far off the paint chip.  I was going to give it another coat of paint, but it dried so quickly, that by the time I cleaned out my paintbrush, the chair was dry enough to put it in the flower bed.  So I hauled the chair up the hill.

 

After digging out dirt for the two back legs of the chair, I buried it in the slope of the flower bed.  After carefully pulling through the new peony growth, the chair looks like it's been there for awhile.

  Any more clutter up on this hill will give the likes of that old TV serial, Sanford and Son.

 

The great thing about this 'cage' is that I can move it later in the spring and summer and cage the purple and white columbine after the peonies bloom.

 

 

 

Now it is supposed to rain for the next three days, so I will see how the paint holds.  I can always put another coat of paint on it later.

 

So many of my projects are so time consuming, that when completing this project I had instant gratification for once.  How great is that?