Monday, January 6, 2014

DIY Chairs

When I moved out of my sorority, I learned that they were selling their [nearly] 50 year old dining room chairs. They were selling them for $5 each since they were updating the dining room this past summer, and I thought they'd go great in any future apartment or home I may own, but they needed some work. They're old chairs, but they're in good condition, and I thought that someday if I had a daughter, she could use one in her room, or they could be used as spare seats if we had guests over. Below are the pictures and steps I took to spray paint the chairs, and bring them back to life.

So if you are looking to spice up some old furniture, here are 5 quick steps to doing so! I used spray paint I found at the Home Depot, and I chose the glossy finish instead of the matte. It took about 1 can of spray paint for each chair, so buy 2 or 3 just to be safe. 

Step 1:  First begin by sanding down all of the chair except the wicker seat. It doesn't need to be perfect, but roughing up the wood so the spray paint sticks is crucial. It's probably best to place the chairs on top of old towels or pieces of cardboard [in my case a couple empty pizza boxes] so you don't get too much spray paint on the concrete or grass. 


Step 2:  Next we taped off the corners of the chair seat as close to the wooden legs as possible using painters tape. It took about 3 pieces of tape on each corner to make sure none of the wicker was exposed. Be careful not to get any tape on the leg or you will have an unpainted spot!



Step 3:  We continued taping around the edges of the top of the seat until they were covered. We then flipped the chairs over and did the same thing [corners and edges] on the bottom. You can see the sanding job we did a little better in this picture, too! 



Step 4:  Once the edges and corners were covered, we took cardboard boxes [naturally the only cardboard boxes you will find at a college guy's house are beer boxes] and taped the edges of those down to make sure the top was fully covered. We did this for the bottom of the chairs, too. 



Step 5:  We then spray painted the chairs from top to bottom. After letting the paint sit to dry for approximately one hour, we flipped the chair upside down and sprayed the underside and inside edges we missed. 




After about 24 hours, we removed the tape and boxes off of the seating to reveal the finished product as seen above. Even my guy friend that helped me was anxious to see the finished product!


I love the contrast of the older wicker seat against the bright, glossy finish of the the chair legs and backing of the chair. I am very happy with how this project turned out.









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