Painted chairs and slipcovers

     Happy Monday! If your house is like my house, it is a disaster. Something about weekends....by Monday morning it looks like a small cyclone has gone through. I'm not complaining though...at least I have a house to clean. I'm thankful we didn't get any of those crazy storms like so many here in the south recently did. Anyway, I'm shirking my housecleaning duties for a few minutes to show off my snazzy dazzy new chairs. Well, new looking chairs rather. I started with this.

     Eight of them to be exact. To start, I took off their seats. If you've never done this to your dining chairs before, let me recommend it. I was quite horrified at all the crunchy bits of past meals that came sprinkling out. Yuck!

     I gave them a light sanding to roughen the varnish, and thoroughly wiped them down. I wanted to make sure I wasn't trying to paint over petrified meatloaf or something. I gave them two coats of primer and two coats of white paint. I used Krylon brand spray paint. It covers well and the nozzle is easy on the fingers. After I was sure it was dried well, I glazed it with Ralph Lauren glaze tinted dark brown.  Glazing brings out all the carved detail. Here it is before glazing.

    
     And here it is after glazing.

     The glaze gives it so much more depth. Glazing is easy to do, you just brush it all over one section at a time and wipe off. I wanted to keep the nice clean white and only bring out the edge details so I dry brushed it around the edges.

     I was pretty generous with it on the front legs, because they had such nice detail.



     After the glaze was dry, I covered it all with a coat of polyacrylic. It is water based and doesn't yellow over white paint like polyurethane will. I learned everything I know about glazing from this site.

     The slipcovers are a story all to themselves. I searched high and low for ages for material to sew slipcovers. I could not find a thing that would match reds, blacks and whites I already had going on in the room. I only found one fabric I liked and it was $20 a yard! Ummm, just a teensy bit expensive, but thanks. Finally, I was in the salvage store one day and came across a bunch of table cloths that were the right shade of red. I bought four of them and it cost me about $1.30 a yard. Much better! The fabric is a nice heavy weight that drapes well and doesn't wrinkle so they were perfect to use. Plus, I was able to use the existing hems which cut out hours of extra sewing for me! Yay!

     I just used the seat as my pattern and then added a pleated skirt. Check out this site for all the tips you could ever want on slipcovers. The only thing a little tricky to fitting these seats was the back. There is no space for a skirt to come out the back of the chair, so I just serged about 12 inches and then started the skirt. I just pulled it down as tight as I could between the cushion and the chair when tying it on. It's not perfect, but it works.

     It makes the room look so much brighter!

     I still have the table to do. I plan to restain the top and paint and glaze the legs. It might be a few weeks before I get to do that though, I need the mister to help me cart it outside. 

     I couldn't be happier with how they turned out!

Linking to:

Between Naps on the Porch

The Girl Creative

Not Just a Housewife

The Stories of A to Z

Tea Rose Home

Sew Much Ado

My Girlish Whims

Someday Crafts

Restore Interiors

Simple Home Life

Miss Mustard Seed

Funky Junk Interiors

The Freckled Laundry

Boogieboard Cottage