Chairs may be my new favorite thing to paint. I came across a listing on line for an old chair selling for $10. It was listed with another item that I was interested in buying but when I inquired about both of them the seller said she had already sold the other item but the chair was still available. I wasn’t sure I wanted it and told her I would contact her the next day. Well the next afternoon she contacted me and asked if I was still interested and I figured why not. For $10 I may as well pick it up and try it out. It was probably a beauty in it’s day but it wasn’t looking so good now.
The chair has great lines but looks like someone left it out in the weather.
I called it the “hairy” chair because it looks like whiskers are coming out of the wood. I could also rub some of what was left of the stain of with my finger. I didn’t want to sit on it because who knows how much of the chair was going to walk away with me on my clothes. 🙂
Normally with chalk paint there is no sanding needed but this chair needed sanding. There was a bit of dust on the floor after that but once I sanded the “hair” and old stain off it was a nice sturdy chair. I did have to do some gluing because a few places were warped (i’m sure from being outside in the elements).
You can see the wood pulling apart.
A little wood glue and clamps did the trick.
Next it was time to take the seat off. Under the seat the original tag was still stapled to the bottom. This was nice because I was able to look on line and do a little research on the chair. From what I can tell this chair is from the early 1960’s.
You can see the tag and the company name along with the registry #. It’s nice to have this info and fun to find out a little about this old chair. It was even more fun when I took the vinyl cover off to find the original fabric on the seat. Sixties green velvet! Unfortunately along with the green velvet was some green mold! eek!! Someone definitely left this outside to get wet. And the vinyl covering didn’t give much protection.
I’m sure in it’s day this green velvet was gorgeous! But the mold sent this to the garbage can immediately. Then I cleaned the wood to get rid of the mold. I also had to glue the wood because it was also warped and splitting. I didn’t keep any of he original padding because it was looking pretty worn out and a little of it was touching the moldy material. Better to just start fresh. I bought new padding (foam padding I found at walmart for $6 that is made for chairs) and cut it to size. This was a bit of a chore because for some reason I thought a 2 inch foam piece was the way to go. Wrong! It was huge so I cut it in half to make it about 1 inch thick (maybe a little more) and then cut the top so that it was curved and not square on the edges. Then to make it a little more smooth and even I added a little batting. Once all the repair work was done I could staple the fabric to the seat and start painting. I pictured this chair red and ASCP Emperor’s silk is AMAZING! Now I needed fabric to go with it. I found the cutest fabric at Hobby Lobby (LOVE Hobby Lobby)!! So with my discount I got a yard of it for around $25. I only used 1/2 of the material so later I will show you the 2nd chair I painted!! (spoiler alert: it is even more fun than this chair)
2 coats of Emperor’s silk paint and a coat of clear wax and this chair was done!
Hello beautiful!! Such a fun accent piece!
So this is my “almost didn’t happen” chair project! So glad the cute lady who sold this to me was persistent! Seriously… chairs maybe my all time favorite things to paint! In my next post I will show you the second chair I painted.
Thanks for stopping by
Cindy
