DONE: Dining Room Chair Re-do – Trav and Erin + 3

Last Friday night at 10 PM, I could finally say…FINISHED. The dining room chairs were finished! The dining room was put back together. It was a great feeling!

Our dark and drab chairs went from this…

…to THIS!

What a big change! It wasn’t without a lot of time, hard work, and a little more money than I planned on though. I’d been tired of our “boring” dining room for a while; there was just too much cherry wood in there. The table, chairs, floor, china cabinet, and even a mirror and shelf hanging on the wall…were all cherry wood. BORING!

So, I looked around on Pinterest for inspiration, and I came across this blog. I really liked the way her chairs turned out, but I kept looking for other ideas. I knew I wanted to try using Annie Sloan Chalk Paint, so I just needed to decide on a color. I finally narrowed it down to Duck Egg Blue, Old White, or Country Grey. Old White and Country Grey definitely would have been more “neutral”, but I decided to go out on a limb and do something more fun. I wanted to add a splash of color to the room. I figured I could always paint over them or buy new chairs if it was a complete disaster. So, Duck Egg Blue it was…

This is probably where I should tell you that I LOVED using ASCP, but I sure didn’t pick an easy project for my first time to use it. It wasn’t the paint that made it hard; it’s just that painting chairs is REALLY tedious work. There are so many corners, angles, and sides to ONE chair, and I had to paint EIGHT. Whew! No complaints against the paint though…it was very easy to use, dried quickly, and covered really well. The chairs really only needed one coat of paint with a few areas touched up by a second coat. It only took 1 quart of paint to cover all 8 chairs!

Basically, the steps went like this: Take off all of the seat pads. Wipe down chairs with a slightly damp rag and let them dry. Paint the chairs with ASCP. After they are dry, touch up the chairs with a second coat of paint where needed. Take the chairs outside and “distress” them lightly with a sanding block. (I mainly distressed the edges and corners of the chairs). Wipe off all of the chalk “dust”. Then it’s time to wax the chairs…

Using the Annie Sloan wax was what I was probably most nervous about. I’d never waxed any furniture before, and I’d read online that this was the hardest part. I wouldn’t really call it “hard”…just TEDIOUS. (Probably because I had so many chairs to wax). You basically rub a very small amount of wax onto the chair, and then wipe the excess off with a rag. You don’t want to use too much wax though, or the chairs will end up feeling sticky when you’re finished. I tried to be very careful to not use too much, and I think that I ended up using the right amount. It took the wax a good 48 hours to dry really well, but after waiting that long and rubbing them down one more time, they were perfect! I ended up having quite a bit of wax leftover, so I guess I’ll save it for another project down the road. I’m sure this won’t be my last furniture painting project :)

When it was time to pick out new fabric, I went to JoAnn’s and Hancock Fabrics. Lo and behold, Hancock had the very same fabric that the girl from the blog used on her chairs! I brought home that swatch and several others, but that one was definitely the winner. I liked how it had red and green in it as well as the blue-green color. So, I ended up copying the other girl’s chairs exactly! Oh well…I never claimed to be original :)

Re-covering the chairs wasn’t very hard at all. This was really the only part that I needed Travis to help with. I didn’t have enough hands to fold the fabric and staple it down too! We did a couple of chairs every night after Brooklyn went to bed until we were finished.

The project ended up costing around $135 once I was all finished. The paint and wax were about $65 (definitely not cheap!), and the fabric was about $65 (after being 40% off and using a coupon). I had no idea fabric was so expensive! We did buy enough extra so that we can re-do 2 chairs in the future if they get messed up. And, we also bought new screws for the seat pads at Lowe’s for about $5. The old screws were rusted, and a lot of them were missing (the chairs are at least 50-60 years old). It wasn’t a cheap project, but it makes a huge difference in the room, so it was worth it.

The main “cost” of the project was all the time I spent on it. I didn’t keep a timer going, but I’m sure it was easily 25-30+ hours. It took 7 hours just to WAX the chairs, and that was hurrying at the end. I spent several Saturdays working all day on the chairs with only a couple of small breaks. I couldn’t work on the chairs during the week while watching Brooklyn, so this was really a night and weekend project. That’s why it took several weeks from start to finish. Still worth it in my opinion!

It’s hard to tell in this picture, but that painting has all of the colors from the new fabric in it! That’s another reason I liked it…

The only thing I would change if I did this project over again would be to add more “stuffing” to the seat pads. When we recovered them, we took off two old layers of fabric, which left only the original foam. I wish I’d taken the time to either buy new foam or at least add some stuffing. At that point in the project, I was just ready to be finished, but I should’ve just taken the time to “do it right” as Travis says. The chairs aren’t uncomfortable, but they could definitely be more “cushiony”. I might as well have done that after spending so much time on the project anyway!

So, that’s it…a major transformation! The pictures don’t really do it justice, but they at least give you an idea of the change. It was a lot of work, but I’d definitely do it again. I’m a sucker for a good makeover, and I’m so happy with how they turned out!