Don’t feel like reupholstering a chair? No problem, PAINT it!!
I often feel like making changes in my home. I find myself looking for projects to do. Due to the pandemic and having been stuck at home a lot this last year, I think many people got more interested in redoing, redecorating and changing their homes. Now our houses, apartments and rooms have to double as a office, place of entertainment, restaurant and so on. Scrolling through instagram and pinterest, you will see many beautiful options. Some are easy and some are so hard for a regular non-handy person to do so it can be discouraging. Another reason those spectacular renovations can be hard for a regular person is if they live in a rental! I live in a rented apartment in NYC. I can’t exactly change the layout of my place or switch out the windows/doors/floors. No major renovations would be accepted by my landlord, so I have to come up with things to do that still creates something I will love but is not a permanent change to my apartment.
Today I want to address changing the look of two chairs. I received these brown chairs from a friend a long time ago. At the time, they went with my place but as my style has evolved, the brown no longer works with my airy and bright place anymore. I wanted to make them feel really clean and unusual but also didn’t want to reupholster them because I honestly didn’t want to deal with the double piping. I needed a quick fix that would satisfy my need for change, look more modern and not take a very long time to do.
So I decided to paint the (entire) chairs instead!! It sounded like an easy fix. Believe it or not though, there are not that many paints out there that you can use to paint fabric with (Maybe a business idea for someone? You’re welcome! Just send a check to a homeless shelter on my behalf once you are successful and making money of this genius idea). Most regular paints dry very stiff and crack so it didn’t seem like an option. I wanted to be able to sit on my chairs without feeling like I’m sitting on paper and walk around with paint chips on my bum once I get up.
I went to all the regular home improvement places without any luck. However the art store BLICK delivered!! After consulting the staff I decided to go with fabric screen printing ink. It’s the same ink you would use to print on t-shirts. I figured if you can use it on garments I should be able to use it for chairs. I LOVE the results! Let me know what you think and send me your photos of your own chair makeovers.
This is the chair before I started. It wasn’t bad but I was not a fan of brown color especially since my home is more in the black/white tones with wood accents… The fabric is very smooth. I don’t think the result would have been as great if it was a more “hairy” fabric. So think about that before you decide to paint your chairs. I think it works best with silk or sating type of material versus velvet or wool.
Next I stripped the old paint with a sand paper. It was a really rough job. My arms hurt for days after. I should have used my sander instead. I remember back in the days when I lived in LA, my friend and I painted these same chairs black for her (Later on she gifted them to me once we both moved to NY). We had done a crummy paint job so I needed to strip it all off. I have to say, I REALLY liked the half stripped and bare wood look. If I in a few months feel like changing things up again, I might sandpaper the paint off the wood parts of the chair again (this time I will use my power sander for the large areas)
And then I went to town. I turned on Friends in the background while painting. (I just can’t get enough of that show! Was Ross and Rachel really on a break?) I painted the chairs with a regular 2” wide nylon paint brush.
Voilà! I LOVE the result. I decided to not cake on the paint so you can see the striped material coming through from underneath. It’s not perfectly painted either. It gives it a little more interest and “grungy” look. The paint is starch white and flat. It really made the chairs look more like art pieces than chairs.
Materials used:
I used this white screen printing paint. Click the link to buy directly from them.
I used an ultra pure white with ever the slightest sheen. I think maybe eggshell is more user and room friendly.
Any flat, nylon paintbrush will do. I used the 2 inch ones for larger surfaces and smaller ones for the details
I used the medium # 80 sandpaper block to really rough
I used this at the end to smooth things out before painting it all white.
Drop cloth