A Case of the Blues

Last week I shared with you the beautiful chairs that we scored for free...

You all agreed they were a great find, and I wasted absolutely no time getting to work on them. I'm tired of living in a partially put together rental that doesn't feel anything like home. It really lit a fire underneath me, so here's what we did. 

We started by flipping the chairs over and taking them apart.

Even though everything about them seems pretty uniform, we decided to mark each chair and seat, so we could match them up later no problem. I also decided it was best to keep the screws from each chair in separate bags to avoid any problems later (we've learned that even though everything seems like it will match up fine, that's not always the case). 

The next step was cleaning them up... and that was a must. There was quite a lot of grime built up in the chairs crevices, and even some mystery stuff on the bottom of one of the seats.

With the chairs all cleaned up, it was time to start sanding. Of course, with B at work and me watching Halle during the day, my time to work no them was limited. So in between naps, I would sand and last Wednesday, Halle and I headed to Home Depot to pick out some paint. I finally decided on Martha Stewart's Cornflower Blue. It's the perfect cheery blue to brighten up our little breakfast nook. I had it colour matched to Behr's Ultra Paint & Primer in one. It made the whole process a lot easier and gave some great coverage.

{All sanded & ready for paint!}

{LOVE this blue!}

When painting them, I made sure they were completely cleaned, well sanded and then dusted off. Once they were ready I applied the first coat and let them sit over night (the guy at Home Depot told me to wait 8 hours between coats, so this ensured they were well set). Once dry, the second coat went on and they sat for another night. So what do they look like... we'll get to that in a second.

Of course, paint wasn't the only thing that I needed to make a decision about. Those chairs needed to be recovered. Though the fabric would work in some houses, it doesn't really go with our style... plus it was dirty and gross, so it had to be recovered. 

With the project already running us a whole $0 (Chairs were free and we used some store credit we had from Home Depot to buy the paint), I felt like trying to keep it that way. So down to my loads of fabric in the basement to see what I had on hand that would work for the seats. I was a little disappointed to discover that I didn't have enough of either of the neutral fabrics that I had in mind, to cover all four chair seats. This mean, I've hit a bit of a standstill, and I'm not completely sure what to do now. Do I run out and start searching for new fabric? God knows that could be another few months before I find something I really love. My other idea is to use two fabrics, so that two chairs are neutral, and two have some sort of print maybe? I'm not sure if I have enough of my Robert Allen fabric left over to cover it, but if it works it could be an option. Thoughts?

Well, with seat remaining uncovered, I have the chairs in our breakfast nook. Here is how the space is set up now (it's slightly grainy, it's been hard to capture a good shot of it the last two days)...

I decided that the space was large enough to leave the leaf in the table, especially now that we have more chairs. I also removed the rug that was on the floor - it was impractical at the moment with Halle throwing and dropping food off of her highchair constantly. I plan on keeping and painting those two chairs on either end, but I'm not sure what colour I want to paint them. B has suggested a dusty, antique kind of red to keep with the print (I think he just wants a little red, white and blue in our home). I'm not opposed, but I'm not completely convinced either. Regardless, they need a coat of paint as they are a little hurting from the previous owners...

So that's where I am! Some real time updates for you (very real as we've been busy, busy so I didn't even have time to finish up this post yesterday and pre-schedule it). Would love to hear your opinions on my fabric and paint dilemma!