Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Fab Chair Makeover

So I've had these chairs for...oh...about 9 months! At first, I tried scraping them. After 3 hours and very little progress I just gave up for a few months.
Then after I finally got some paint stripper, I started working on them again. It was so much harder than I thought it would be. The first problem is that the black paint that was used originally was so thick and sticky that it turned into tar when the stripper was added. The next problem was that there were so many details on chairs that it made it hard to get the paint off. I scraped and scraped, I scrubbed and scrubbed with steel wool dipped in paint stripper. I sanded and sanded again and finally got ONE to a point that I could paint.
Side by side comparison!
I loved the details when I got them, but I didn't realize how much I would hate them (not really) by the time I was finished. I found the most perfect fabric for my vision. I was going to paint the completed chair white and then pulled out the material to look at it, and realized that the pattern wasn't white it was cream. Aaarrghhhh!
The recovered seat, just adding the piping.

Luckily I had only primed it, so I painted it ivory and it turned out beautifully.
Not the greatest picture. My entrance where it is currently stashed doesn't have the best lighting.

UPDATE: It has been almost 4 months and I just finished distressing and glazing the chair with a dark brown stain. It turned out awesome! I'm still really new to this so it took me a while to build up the courage to do it! Now that this chair is done I can concentrate on finishing the sanding and stripping of the other 3 chairs. (They are almost done, they are just SOOOO stubborn!)

So finally here is the finished chair!
And again here is the before and after:
BEFORE

and

AFTER
One down three to go...and a table to match! :-)

I'm linking up to Drab to Fab's Chair Party!


http://www.gorgfabgoodies.blogspot.com/
and Primitive & Proper Link Party: