Before and After: Kitchen Chairs

I am telling you - I decided over Memorial Day weekend that it was time to get down and dirty with some painting projects and I made good.  In that weekend, I painted the dining room mirror, my IKEA chest for my bedroom and my four IKEA chairs for my kitchen.  

I will put it on record right here, right now: I hate painting chairs.  I really do.  They are so annoying!  And of course, in my case, I was taking my chairs from black to white.  I knew I was in for at least three coats of paint and one coat of primer.  I was right. But first, let's go back to the beginning.

When I moved into my place last Spring, I bought a nice wooden table for my eat-in kitchen (from IKEA) and four Stefan chairs.  I've had these chairs before, and chances are, you have too.  They're very inexpensive and the size is pretty great for a small space.  The only issues and there are two: (1) they only had black and (2) they are really uncomfortable to sit on.  But I knew I could change that with a little paint, foam and fabric, so I went for the bargain $20 chairs.   You can see the chairs and table in this old pic.


So I got down to business.  I took the seats off the chairs (because I would upholster them) and used one coat of Zinsser oil based primer and three coats of Valspar paint and primer in one (in cream delight, semi gloss finish) on top.  Plus two coats of Polycrilic.  The frames were looking good.  And then it was time to upholster them. 

I went to Joann's and bought some foam for the seats.  Then cut the foam to size, used batting and some fabric I found at Fabric.com and ... voila!





I debated going with the yellow.  I tried out some other more neutral fabric I had in my stash, but ultimately I loved the little pop of color under the table.  This means I'll definitely paint the little wooden stepstool grey instead of yellow though!  

I love the transformation in this space.  It's light, bright and happy:  exactly what a kitchen should be!


See you swoon,

No comments:

Post a Comment