Shabby Chic Chairs With a Retro Edge

I have been very busy this week finishing off some chairs that I bought months ago- I was still pregnant and my baby is now four and a half months. There was a good reason that I put them off though- I have a very strong love/hate relationship with painting chairs. They were the first real project I ever undertook (mistakenly, I thought they would be simple). I love the result, but boy oh boy, painting chairs is hard work. All that surface area and tight little nooks and details and changes in wood grain direction... eugh!

For the home DIYer, here are some tips to making painting chairs that little bit easier- learn from my mistakes!

1. Sand back by hand- it's actually much easier to get an even result then trying to use an electric sander. Don't think you need to sand the whole thing back to raw grain (this was the mistake I made when I first attempted chairs, and I spent full days sanding and still couldn't get them right back).

2. Select a narrow brush for painting all the fine detail and look really carefully for drips before they dry. Keep a cloth with you to brush off drips if necessary.

3. Turn the chair upside down an paint the legs first. This is also a good rule for painting table legs.

4. Double check that you have painted all the sides and angles- it's really easy to miss the underside of a bar when there are so many different sides.

So here are some pics of this project-



Chair before with some light sanding. As you can see I didn't try to get it perfect, just prepare the surface so that the primer would stick.

The finished product- you'll notice it matches the table that's for sale on Ebay.
 If I had the room I would keep both for sure!