I found these chairs at the D.I. for $45 dollars a piece.
At first, I stood in front of them invisioning what I could do to them. I loved the style of the chair, the fabric color was perfect, but the brown wood needed to go. I took a look at the price tag and was a little turned off by the price. Yes, I am a MAJOR CHEAPO! I even tried talking to the manager to see if they would go down on them a little bit but they had only been out on the floor for a few hours so they said no. At that point, I walked away and looked at some other things in the store. Eventually, I found myself right where I started, standing in front of the chairs staring at them. Maybe if I just bought one. I decided to take a seat in them. After feeling how comfortable they were, I really started to think about splurging. But if I bought one, I HAD to buy both!!! But my husband would be so mad, we just talked about budgets the day before! But they are perfect, I thought. But I can't take them back if he is mad. I decided to do what was best and drove home. Once I got home, I could not stop thinking about them! It was a sign, I NEEDED those chairs! Not sure what I was going to tell my husband, I ran back to the D.I. and splurged a bit. I spent $90 for the two chairs but what would I say?!?! Slightly frantic and feeling terrible for what I had just done, I remembered that my mom was coming through town. I called her up and asked her to come load the chairs up in her van and take them home to her house until I could break the news to C.J. Maybe I could sell a few things we didn't need anymore; maybe I could go and work for my mom for a few hours organizing and cleaning; MAYBE I could go donate plasma! I didn't care, I would find a way to make it work... After about a week of hiding the chairs, I finally broke the news to C.J. He said..."cool"
At first I was like:
And then I was like:
To give these chairs the look I wanted, I needed a lot of paint-tape and a lot of time. It took me about 2 and a half hours to tape each one of these chairs. With each piece of tape, I had to use my fingernails to tuck the tape in between the cording and the wood to make sure I didn't get any paint on the fabric.
After taping everything off, I roughed up the wood with a sanding block to make sure the paint stuck well. I used a small paint brush and got to work on painting. I used a chalk paint with Plaster of Paris in it, I was NOT a fan of this method. Since the chairs, I have found a blogger that uses cornstarch in her chalk paint. I used this method on my farmhouse table #2 and LOVED the results. The paint sticks better, paints better with no brush strokes, and is softer to the touch. CLICK HERE for her reciepe. After painting I sanded with a FINE grit sanding block and used a finishing paste like this to protect my paint.
Here is my before and after! I LOVE the way they turned out! It was so worth the worry of getting in trouble with the hubby and ALL the taping and ALL the painting and waxing.
