Rocking Chair complete!

Since I became a teacher I have wanted a rocking chair in my room. I love reading picture books aloud to kids, even 4th graders! I had looked on craigslist and at garage sales and saw rocking chairs here and there... just never committed. Well, now that I am headed to 1st grade I decided it was a must!
I got on craigslist and BAM! There was a perfectly good little rocking chair for $20.

After sitting in the garage a few weeks, it finally made it's way down to the basement yesterday. I began sanding and prepping for paint. I was still trying to imagine how I wanted it to look in the end. I put spray paint primer on because my sanding job was pretty sad. However, the primer made my whole house REEK of paint fumes....ooops! I am sure I killed a few hundred brain cells in each of my kids, but hopefully it didn't affect them as much as it did me. 

So then  headed outside, no more fumes in the house! I used trash bags, newspaper, and painters tape to block off the sections I was not painting black. It took 4 cans of spray paint and 2 layers for the parts I had sectioned off! 

Today I painted the red, which took 2 coats. I used acrylic paint for that part and planned to use white acrylic for the spindles. I really probably should have used A) softer brush and B) a 3rd coat, but at this point I was thinking "This is taking a lot longer than I had anticipated." Some of you may be asking where in the world are your children during this? SLEEPING! I have some good nappers... I also must do a good job wearing them out while they are awake! 1 1/2 hr nap in the morning and 2 hour nap in the afternoon followed by a 7:30 bedtime.

The rest of it was adding all the cutesy! The J for Jankord and then gotta have polka dots! For the J I printed it out on the computer and traced. The top part I just looked at the printed version and free handed it. The D stands out more than the other letters but again at this point, I decided I didn't care! I love, love my new rocking chair!