August 16, 2013

DIY Dining Chair Makeover


Dining Chair Roadside Rescue | Tried & Twisted

The garbage, it's not just for raccoons and feral cats anymore.

Let's face it. It's generally easier to throw out furniture and decorations when they go out of style rather than renovate it or even bother to sell it. Most sane people just don't want to be bothered with all of that work.

But there is a lot of hidden potential hiding in yesterday's decoration.

All it takes is a little creativity to take curbside rejects and turn them into something brand new and beautiful.

Visiting Tried & Twisted today is my talented mom, "The MommaBar", who recently put a little time and effort into a lucky roadside find to make a spectacular new chair for her sunroom.


While walking in her neighborhood this spring, my Momma spotted an abandoned white dining chair thrown to the curb for the garbage collectors. While the chair was dirty, there was nothing wrong with its structure. So she picked it up and carted it home for this DIY project.

Dining Chair Makeover | Tried & Twisted

*Actually we forgot to get a before shot, so this before picture is from online. There are a few differences, but it's close enough if you use your imagination.

While white is still going strong among the country chic community, a lot of furniture stores have been unveiling new designs that creatively pair a bold pop color with the beauty of the natural wood. Here's how MommaBar brought that warm natural look to her sunroom.

How To Re-Paint a Dining Chair:

Step 1: Disassembling the top of the chair made this process easier and, since the chair's cheaper glue had already dried up, the chair was loose at the seams and easy to pull apart. You can either pull the top and legs apart or else you can line painter's tape around the base of every rung and leg.

Step 2: Sand off the white paint with a random orbit palm power sander. This stage might take a little while.

She decided to leave some areas a little more ragged for that antique look by sanding deeper into the wood once the paint was removed. You can see that effect on the seat base.

Step 3: Spray paint selected areas with an accent color. She used Valspar leafy rise satin for a soft sage color.

She added an extra touch of trim around the seat base by lightly applying extra paint with an angled paint brush.

Trim Paint in Two Tones | Tried & Twisted

Step 4: Stain the seat base with a basic oak wood stain.

Step 5: Reassemble your chair with fresh wood glue applies to the joints.

Depending on your model of chair, you may want to drive an angled piece of wood or a wedge to help hold the pieces together. Let me try to explain with a little woodworking terminology.  The holes in the seat base  would be called a "mortise" and the chair rung end would be called a tenon. When you insert the tenon into the mortise or hole, it might have some wiggle room. By driving a wooden wedge up into the tenon, you cause the chair rung to expand and fit snugly into the mortise. Get it? Got it. Good!


Voila! A pretty unique accent chair from what was a trash-bound, unoriginal mass-produced Walmart staple.

Naturally, you can chose any accent color for pop that you'd like. In this case, MommaBar matched her chair accent color with a corner hutch, that she of course made herself as well. She's got mad skillz.


So that's it for today's post! Thank you for sticking with me through my summer hiatus, and I'll see you next week as I continue to give new projects a try and a little twist. 

Have you found some lovely furniture by the roadside and just didn't know what to do with it? Do you prefer a modern pop color, natural wood, or country chic white? Let me know what you think!

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8 comments:

  1. Oh I love your redo. I really like that you kept the seat natural, it looks amazing. Hugs, Marty

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  2. Love it this was a great job. I always say one mans garbage is another mans treasure I pick up a lot of things and re do them right now I'm working on a rocking chair that was given to me for free and I enjoy doing things like this.

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    Replies
    1. I love the freedom in redoing something that was free! It's easier to get so much more experimental.

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  3. Beautiful update! I'd love if you'd link up to The DIY'ers: http://homecomingmn.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-diyers-and-our-country-weekend.html

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  4. What a great find! It looks so much better after your redo. I love that you left the seat natural with a stain so you can see the wood grains. I love the color you picked, and how you added a little to the edge of the seat. I have never seen that done before. Love it!!! Thanks for sharing!

    Linda @ Mixed Kreations

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  5. What a great job you did on recycling that chair. I so enjoy when something old becomes new again and especially when it looks as good as your chair does.

    I would love to have you to link up at my weekly Clever Chicks Blog Hop: http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2013/10/clever-chicks-blog-hop-55-with-two.html



    I hope you can make it!
    Cheers,
    Kathy Shea Mormino

    The Chicken Chick

    http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/

    ReplyDelete

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