Dining Room Chair Makeover- Before and After

This is the summer of more home projects, specifically tackling ones that have been lingering on my to do list like my dining room chairs!

So here’s the story behind this latest project. These chairs belonged to my grandparents, and I’ve had them for maybe 11 years now. About 10 yrs ago I sanded off the thick layers of stain and varnish down to the natural wood- on about 2 of the chairs. It was incredibly time consuming and ultimately I changed my mind and realized I wanted to paint them… but what? During this time we moved several times, and after testing out some paints and getting it wrong, I finally found this red- Tawny Daylily by Benjamin Moore in semigloss. The seat cushions were once a blue and white gingham, and thanks to my mom who recovered them in a print by @riflepaperco AND this summer I finally finished painting the remaining 4 chairs.

How did I do it? I bought myself a paint sprayer- which allowed me to prime and paint the chairs over 2 and a half days. The total paint and prep time was maybe 3-4 hrs tops. This behemoth task plus having a good space to paint and the right weather conditions- was mentally holding me back to finish this project. It wasn’t until seeing other diy-ers on tiktok with their paint sprayers that I finally bought one for myself! And oh my god you guys- get yourself one, or borrow one. It’s worth the $40! Chairs are deceptively tedious- each leg and arm has four sides - that’s four sides to sand, to prime and to paint. Without the paint sprayer- this project would have easily taken me weeks and would have been a nightmare to work around the rainy summer we’ve had.

So here they are in our kitchen. (Just in time for the kitchen flip we’re planning to do ourselves this fall.)

PS I used a power sander to take the stain off the chairs. Over the winter I tried to use the orange paint stripper and had zero luck- it made it a stickier mess. I don’t recommend it. . Next up I’m going to use the paint sprayer to paint some of the kitchen cabinets I scored on marketplace for our kitchen makeover.