I fancy myself a DIYer. Well, its one of the many things that I dabble in. Meaning, I have many, many, many ideas that I pin to my Pinterest page and some (and by some, I mean 1 or 2) of them actually materialize in real life. I will try to feature some of the things that I attempt, whether it is the start of a project, mid-project (which unfortunately is where many of my projects go to die) or miraculously, a finished project from time to time.
My expertise skill talent (okay I laughed as a wrote those! What is the opposite of all of these?) Let me try again- The projects I like to do most are DIY furniture restorations. Which doesn’t mean that I am any good at it. I’m super into finding old furniture at garage sales (garage sales are another hobby of mine!), painting and distressing them. Anyone else really into the whole distressed look right now? A very convenient style for someone who goes dumpster diving. Well, maybe not dumpsters, but if you leave something on the end of your driveway, free sign or not, I’m taking it. I even have my mom picking up free furniture for me! I don’t know if I have any furniture in my house that I bought new.
Anyway, the first project I did was a dining room set that was very old but it said Thomasville on the tag so I figured it was once an expensive set. Thomasville makes good furniture, right? It was a large table that could extend in the middle and 6 matching chairs. I paid $50 dollars for the whole thing! I was pumped! The hubster, not so much. Well, the jokes on him because that was 7 years ago and we still have it as our dining room set today. I have redone the chairs twice, but unfortunately have yet to touch the table. I can’t make a decision on what I want to do with it. Did I mention that I am severely indecisive, in addition to being a dabbler?!
But, as I said, I did do the chairs when I first got them and recently redid them. I have read a lot of “How-To” on repainting/refinishing furniture, but mostly I just did it my own way. I am all about taking the road less traveled if it is much, much shorter and easier! That’s not lazy, that’s smart, right? You know, using your time wisely. Anyway, I didn’t want to spend hours and hours on the chairs and just decided to jump in and spray paint them. If you are looking for the easy way out of furniture refinishing, here is what I did and you can judge the results for yourself (not too harshly, since I am a sensitive soul and I only dabble, remember!)
I made a quick trip to Menards for Rustoleum chalk paint in white and The Home Depot for some sandpaper. I set up a canvas drop cloth I already had on the grass and put one of the chairs on the cloth after removing the seat. I did about 2 coats of the spray paint with about 2 hours in between coats. I wasn’t too worried about how it looked because I could sand any mistakes or paint drips. The next day, I used a fine grit sandpaper to give it the distressed look I was going for. The chairs were brown originally, so I just let the natural brown come through by sanding the creases and edges. When I was satisfied with how it looked, I covered it with a couple coats of a clear matte polycrylic protective finish. I purchased some material from Hobby Lobby to recover the seats. Repeated for all chairs and Voila!
Leave your comments and let me know what you think! Also, what should I do with the table? Maybe I will actually do something with it after 7 years, fingers crossed!
