Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way: My Free Stenciled Stool

I visited my aunt the other day. They had recently moved into a new house, so we went over to see it and hang out for a while. She had a little pile of stuff from the old house they were getting ready to toss or give away, and in the pile, sat this PERFECT sized stool for our kitchen island. We have some tall stools, which are great for the kids, but I’ve been wanting to pick up a couple shorter ones so the adults that sit there don’t feel like giants, know what I mean?

My eyes lit up and she said, It’s yours, please take it!

This guy is solid. It was left in their old home by the owners, so it has been around for a while. I sanded it lightly, took it outside, sat it on a giant towel, and gave it a few coats of Valspar’s Primer and Paint in One, in satin white. I had a full can in my stash.

After it dried, I thought, hmmm…now what?

I have the numbered stools (No. 1 and No. 2) sitting at the island, maybe I need to continue that theme? I’m going to paint another tall stool for the kids, which will be No. 3…perhaps the short stools I add to the mix should be the 4 and 5?

But I didn’t have a large enough stencil. And our printer is who knows where, since our home office is is complete disarray as I get ready to give it a makeover. What to do, what to do….

So I stuck that thinking cap on, and had a lightbulb moment if there ever was one!

I headed over to my laptop, found a great size and font (Baskerville Old Face, size 500), and traced it (VERY lightly, so no scratches on my screen, I promise).

I cut it out…

Went over it with a pencil…(sorry, you can BARELY see it in the crappy camera phone pic – woops!)

Then took a small brush, and some red craft paint and filled it in!

Once that dried, I took it back outside for some gloss protective clear spray paint. I did this step on the other stools in our kitchen, and it has worked WONDERS, especially when you factor in the beatdown they take every other minute of the day in our kitchen.

Done, and didn’t pay a penny!