Our neighbors gave us four matching dining room chairs they no longer had use for because they knew that we needed dining chairs. Our other dining chairs are a mismatched assortment of chairs we’ve either been given as hand-me-downs or we purchased for very little money at thrift stores. Here they are all lined up like ducks (from very different parents) in a row:
We have a few other similarly mismatched chairs scattered throughout the house that we pull in to the dining room on the rare occasions that we entertain. Probably someone a lot craftier than I ever will be could make these mismatched chairs look sort of shabby chic, but in my hands, they just look shabby.
The chairs our neighbors gave us are in good shape, but the wood has been stained and then sealed with a very shiny protective coating that doesn’t go well with our black dining table. So I decided to see if I could remake the chairs into something that better suits our dining room. I thought I’d start with one chair, see how it went, and then decide what to do about the other three. Here’s what the neighbors’ chair looked like before my attack:
This chair makeover project involves two parts: painting the chair and recovering the seat in a new fabric. This post will detail how I painted the chair, and my next post will detail how I recovered the seat.
I was a little intimidated about painting the chair because, although I have painted a lot of wood furniture, I’ve always just re-painted previously painted wood or applied paint to unfinished wood furniture. To paint a chair that had been stained and sealed, I envisioned that I’d have to sand the chair down to the bare wood and then paint it. I asked around and did some online research and discovered, happily, that this is not the case which made this project much more simple.
To begin, I removed the seat cushion. On the underside of the chair, there were three small holes hiding a screw in each one. I used a screwdriver to remove them and the seat cushion came right off. Next came prepping the chair to be painted. Here are the steps I used to prep and paint the chair (which are very similar to the steps I used recently to repaint our deck furniture). These steps can be followed to paint any kind of wood furniture that has been stained and sealed with a material like polyurethane, varnish, or shellac.
Materials
- medium grain (such as 80 or 120 grit) and fine grain (such as 180 grit) sandpaper
- damp cloth (or a tack cloth)
- primer
- semi-gloss or gloss latex paint
- paint brush(es)
- tarp
- newspaper
Step 1: Put the chair on some newspaper (the newspaper will make clean-up a snap). Use the medium grain sandpaper to rough up all the surfaces that will be painted. Sand with the grain of the wood, if possible. The medium grain sandpaper will take off the protective sealant enough so that the primer will adhere to the chair. After sanding with the medium grain paper, sand with the fine grain paper. The medium grain paper roughs up the finish, while the fine grain paper should smooth it out a bit to make the primer adhere better.
Step 2: Wipe down the chair down with a damp cloth to make sure that all the dust is gone. Clean up the newspaper.
Step 3: Move the chair to a tarp or a new set of newspaper. Definitely don’t use the same newspaper that was used to catch the dust from sanding; you don’t want that dust to get mixed in with your paint job. I put the chair on up-ended flower pots in order to make painting the bottom portions of the legs a bit easier.
Step 4: Paint the chair with primer (I used Kilz Premium Interior/Exterior Primer because we had it on hand). You’ll know almost immediately if you haven’t sanded enough — the primer won’t adhere properly to the chair. If that happens, just grab the sandpaper and go back to Step 1. I used two coats of primer on this chair. I’m not sure it was necessary, but I knew that I didn’t want any of the wood color from the chair to show through after I’d finished painting the chair. Let the primer dry between coats and before applying the paint.
Step 5: Apply 2-3 coats of paint, waiting for the paint to completely dry between coats. I used two different sized brushes for this project — a fairly standard size brush we’ve used to paint the trim in our house as well as quite a small brush I borrowed from Charlie. I used the small brush for the parts of the chair that required a bit more attention to detail. I used three coats of paint on the chair.
There you have it, five fairly simple steps that put this chair well on its way to looking radically different. My next post will detail how I recovered the chair’s seat cushion. In the meantime, I just realized that this is the 100th Yikes Money post. Thanks to all of you who spend time reading my blog. I really appreciate it.
UPDATE:
You can check out how I recovered the seat cushion here, and see how the whole project turned out here.
The white looks great! I can’t believe you were able to get rid of all that varnish. Totally impressed by you. I vote for either all white or all black chairs. The seat cushion can be a fun fabric of some sort. What are your thoughts after living with it for awhile?
Wow. I am soooo impressed!!!
Hooray for Yikes! Happy 100 posts:) And nice work on the chair….
Thanks, Kiki. I love me some loyal readers!
Very nice!!
Thanks, I’ve spent way too long working on these chairs. My enthusiasm is waning.
thanks i am Totally impressed this article beautyful chair.
thanks for the info. i’m also looking into re-painting some hand-me-down dining room chairs at my house. did you use an oil or water-based paint? i’ve been told the oil-based is a better bet…
thanks!
Hi. I used a water-based paint because it’s what we had on hand. I, too, have heard that oil-based may provide more coverage but I haven’t tried it. I’m actually a bit reluctant to try it because of the smell, the cost, and the extra clean-up involved. Using the water-based paint has been fine for my purposes. I’m considering adding a coat of polyurethane to the dining room chairs for extra durability. Good luck with your project!
Exactly what I am planning to do. Thank you for the step by step instructions.
I was actually going to give away my table and chairs and buy nudes ones. I will be painting white and using French toile fabric (blue) for a summer home that we just purchased.
You saved me a ton of money.!!!…
Denne,
Glad my post helps. Your chair description sounds lovely. Good luck!
Thanks for the tips! I will definitely try this!
Great! I hope you’re happy with the results.
how long will the painted finish last? does it chip
Hi Colleen, I painted our chairs almost two years ago and none of them have chipped; they all still look great, actually. Hope this helps. Jean
Colleen/Jean – I was wondering that myself. So good to hear that it’s lasting. I have a decorative chair that I need to refinish, I’m going to try this soon. Thanks for the post!
im about a 1/4 of the way through sanding down an old rocking chair as a feeding chair for my girlfriend when we have a baby, im sanding it back to bare wood and want to know if it is actually necessary or not as im painting it white. by the way ive been hand sanding for around 4 hours and still not even half way
Hi Jarrod, Thanks for your comment. I’m sorry for my slow reply; I’ve been out of town. You’ve probably moved on from sanding by now, but in case you haven’t, I don’t think it’s necessary to sand it down to bare wood. It will make for a smoother looking finish if you sand it all the way down, but I’ve repainted plenty of pieces of wood furniture that I haven’t sanded all the way down and I think they still look great. Good luck with the chair and the impending baby!
Regards, Jean
Did you end up coating the chairs with polyeurathane? Do you think this is a necessary step?
Hi Alex, I didn’t end up using polyurethane and the chairs still look great.
Good luck with your project. Jean
Thanks Jean!
Great instructions, have 4 such chairs I am going to start on this weekend! Looking forward to the finished results. Thanks for you blog it really helped
Thanks for the instructions. I have a table with six chairs that my sweet little dogs chewed on, so I want to paint it now. Can’t wait to get started