DIY painted wood chairs

So, first, a little back story.  When we moved from Maine 5 years ago back to NYC area(the greatest place on Earth) we had no furniture.  Literally.  We also had a new baby and were moving at the height of the recession with no job prospects.  So buying new furniture was out.  I found an old 50’s kitchen table and chair set on Ebay for $40. Sold.  The table is a rock.  60+ years old and the top looks like it was made yesterday.  I have rolled pie dough on it, my daughter has colored on it with markers, it has seen a million staining spills.  Nothing can touch it.

  The chairs that came with it are a different story.  They were rusted and the vinyl seats had cracks that gradually got much worse as time went on.  We patched them with colored duct tape.  I hated them.  Then, one day my husband is sitting in one and splat! It collapses out from under him.  I try fixing the screw holes with the wood glue and toothpick trick.  It works for about a week and then down I went.  It had to go.

  Now I have three ugly cracked chairs.  And because the universe is a strange place, that night we go our friend’s house to socialize and they ask us if we need any chairs. (They’re kind.  They know we do, they’ve been to our house.)  We say yes and take 2 IKEA chairs off their hands.  A few days later my husband finds 2 gorgeous if weathered wood chairs on the street.  (He also found a bookcase that turned out to be an antique.  Read about that here.)  So now we have 7 chairs.  We toss the old 50’s nightmares and we are back to 4.  2 IKEA and 2 Bernhardt chairs.  This is better, but…They don’t match and they are 2 different colors of wood.

  The point of this little story is to let you know for 5 years I have been living with ugly, broken kitchen chairs.  Everything we have done without I thought about when I looked at those chairs.  And they became a symbol of all the struggles we’ve had(and there have been plenty) over the last 5 years.  I know there are bigger problems in the world.  But this one is mine, so it’s time to take action.  It’s time to paint them and make them beautiful.

  So here they are.  I washed them with some soapy water and dried them really well.

After a lot of googling and Pinteresting, I came up with a game plan.  I had to do this in my kitchen, so regular stripper was out.  I also didn’t want to do a lot of sanding.  That’s what the deglosser is for.  The mineral spirits is to clean the stripper off (that’s what she said).

Here’s what they looked like after leaving the stripper on for 30 minutes, which was the time recommended on the bottle.  The spray bottle barely covered 2 chairs.  So I was off to Home Depot.  They also make a gel, which I bought instead, being twice as much for the same price.  It didn’t seem to work as well, but eventually it got the job done.  I did need to sand a little to get a few parts the stripper didn’t completely take off.  (That’s my husband fixing the washing machine in background.  He’s handy like that).

After I used a plastic putty knife to strip off all the varnish, I wiped down the chairs really well with paper towels.  Then I wiped them down with the mineral spirits.  This is what they looked like at this stage.  You can see I didn’t really care about getting all the varnish off the inside of the chair base.

Now the IKEA chairs had those metal screws that join the chair together showing.  I hate those.  They scream CHEAP to me.  So to get rid of them, I unscrewed them one at a time.  Then I used a small drill bit(slightly smaller than screw diameter to deepen the screw hole.  Then I used a 1/2 spade bit to make a hole about a 1/2″ deep.  I put some wood glue on the original screw and screwed them back in, deeper than the surface of the chair.  Then I filled the hole with wood filler.  I let it dry, then sanded it til it was smooth.Time for the deglosser. 2 thin coats, letting them dry for about 10 minutes after each coat.  Then 2 very thin coats of primer.  I checked for drips(I had them!), and sanded the drips down where I found them.

Finally, it’s time to paint!  I started with them upside down on the table and did a thin coat of paint.  Flipped them over and did the tops. Then I repeated the process, checking for drips before the 2nd coat. It took me about 3 hours to do each coat on all 4 chairs.

  Now all that’s left is to varnish, and then make some cushions.  I haven’t decided on the varnish yet.  More googling turned up mixed results.  Some people use polycrylic, while others say it turns yellow.  Some people use wax.  Almost everyone agrees not use oil based varnish as it will definitely yellow over paint.  Also read that you should let chairs cure from a week to a whole month.  They’re not going to last a month in my house. They have already been subjected to ice cream, orange juice, pasta and urine. Leaning towards polycrylic…Any suggestions?

The paint color is Benjamin Moore Goldfield, which we bought for the walls but was much too bright!  It looks great on the chairs, though.  They make me smile whenever I look at them.