Project 1: Make the Chairs Great Again! - Part 1

Hi everyone! :)

I won't have many updates on the house for about another week, so I decided to share one of the projects we've been working on. Chad and I will give our old Parson chairs a new purpose in life: decorating our new living room! Our sofa is charcoal and we want to have blue accents in that space, so this original burgundy color has to go. Also, what's up with the fabric-covered legs? Nope.

The first thing we did was carefully cut the fabric around the legs and back using an x-acto knife in order to expose the staples used to hold the fabric together. And holy crap, staples WERE plenty on this darn chair. We used a heavy duty staple remover we bought at Joann Fabrics for $10--you can probably use pliers to do the job, but it will require a lot of time and patience. The investment was well worth it. We were cautious not to remove staples holding the seat and back cushions. One thing we didn't think of until later in the process was to keep the fabric as intact as possible. It will help you tremendously when it's time to cut the new fabric as you can use it as a template.

Once the chair was completely naked (hehe), we fixed the legs. They were unfinished underneath the fabric and all the staples left it with more holes than Swiss cheese. We used wood putty ($5 at Home Depot) to fill the holes and fix any imperfections in the legs. We let it dry for about 4 hours and used 180 grit sandpaper to smooth it all out.

After the legs looked smoother than a baby's butt, I used two coats of Rust-Oleum Gray Spray Primer to prep the legs for paint. Make sure to really clean all the sand dust with a damp cloth and let it dry it completely before applying the primer. It was cold, dark, and windy, but I toughen up and made it work.

After letting it dry for a couple of hours, it was time to paint. We choose Black Rust-Oleum Gloss Paint for the job. Here are some pictures after 2 coats; I actually put another one later in the day, just didn't capture a photo.

Excuse the bathroom photo--this is the bad thing about living in an apartment :P

The next step is to apply the new fabric. I will create a different post for this part. See you then!