Project #1: Repurposed Antique Chairs

Several months ago, my grandfather gave me some old chairs to use for our apartment. I had seen this gorgeous picture on Pinterest of half-painted chairs and knew it was what I would like to do to mine once we had the space. The first furniture project I completed after moving into the house was exactly that. Here is what I needed for this project:

1 sheet sandpaper
1 can Minwax Wood Finish
4 foam brushes
3 Olympic paint samples (grey, orange, and blue)
1 Olympic paint sample in white (if using light colors)

We got all of this at Lowe's for under $20. After much success with the Olympic paint in our dining room, we decided we would be going with them for all future projects. Samples of their paints only cost $3 each and were more than enough for all of the coats I needed for the chairs.

I began by sanding the chairs and wiping them down to get rid of all of the dust and cobwebs. Once they dried, I followed the detailed instructions on the can of Wood Finish and sprayed the bottoms with two layers. What I liked about this was it made the color of the wood uniform without losing worn look. After leaving the chairs upside down until they dried completely, I used the foam brushes to paint them. I tried to use the $1 bristle brushes, but I did not like the streaky brush lines. The foam brushes left a smooth look and were much easier to navigate around all of the little bits. The blue and grey paints went on smoothly and only needed two coats each. However, the orange was extremely difficult. After the first layer I realized that there would not be enough paint in the sample to make it look right if I didn't first do a layer of white. Luckily we had some white paint leftover, but if you don't have any hanging around you could definitely get away with a sample amount of white.

In the end, the chairs came out exactly how I had hoped. I love the way they look against the coral half-wall!