So, I've been wanting a chair for my craft room/office so that one of my dining room chairs can return to its home at the table. But I wanted one that goes with my (soon to be) shabby chic decor and I didn't want to spend a lot of money...SO, when I found this old chair that someone didn't want anymore, I was delighted to try my hand at refninishing it. Keep in mind, I've never refinished furniture so I'm sure there are other, more tried and true techniques, but this is what worked for me.
What you'll need:
Old chair
Acrylic paint and paint brush
Sand paper 220 grit
Fabric and batting
Appropriatey cut plywood if you need to make a seat from scratch
Staple Gun
Now, when I found this chair it didn't have a seat. The frame itself was pretty sturdy, but I had to have a piece of 1/2 inch plywood cut. I made sure to measure the inside of the frame, where the seat would actuall sit into it. I also made the seat about 1/4 inch smaller than the measurements to account for the batting and fabric that I would be using to re-cover the seat.
Start by sanding your chair and seat. My chair was pretty smooth, but it had one of those glossier finishes. I needed to just scuff the surface a bit to make sure the new paint would stick. I sanded the seat too because, well, who wants to risk a splinter on their seat? :) After I sanded, I wiped the dust away with a dry rag and began painting. Make sure you use acrylic paint. I feel like anything latex will peel off in chunks that are too big for the "distressed" look I was going for here.
I'm kind of a perfectionist when it comes to painting so at first, seeing brush strokes were driving me nuts and I decided a second coat was necessary. However, as I was going along with coat #1, I realized the brush strokes actually added to the look I was wanting.
While I waited for my chair to dry, I decided to cover my seat. I'll make that into a separate tutorial soon, but there are a ton of pictures I want to show you so I wont pile it all into one! :) BUT, this was my finished seat!
After my chair had dried, I began the "distressing" part. *Like that play on words? This part was actually very simple!*
I took my sand paper and began sanding off little spots of paint. I made sure to focus on parts that would be naturally worn over time, like the bottoms of the legs, maybe the sides where one would grab to scoot the chair in, on top of the rungs, etc. I also made sure to make my distress marks very random and not even or symmetrical. I've also heard of people using a sock full of coins or something similar to bang against the furniture, making random dents and nicks in it. I didn't want to go that far so I just stopped with the sand paper.
I wiped the dust off with my rag, set my seat in the chair and voila! A new distressed, shabby chic chair for my craft room!
I absolutely LOVE it! It's exactly what I had pictured in my head. The best part, the whole chair cost me MAYBE $25 and I learned that I CAN in fact, repurpose furniture! :)
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