Condo Blues: Retro Metal Chair Redo

Friday, April 25, 2014

Retro Metal Chair Redo

When Husband’s grandmother gave us her spare retro card table chair, I bit my lip. We just got married and weren’t in much of a position to say no to free furniture. We needed a fourth chair for our table. although I hoped new acquisitions would move us in a different design direction from Early Early Marriage and Horribly Mismatched Freebies.

Eventually we bought matching chairs for Husband’s heirloom table. I painted and updated the old chairs with some staple gun upholstery. The three freebie doctor’s office chairs from Husband’s bachelor days now hang out on our front porch.

Grandma W’s retro card table chair made its way to the Room Where Old Furniture Goes to Die – the Guest Room/Craft Room. The minute I pulled it up to my material Grandmother’s enamel top kitchen table I knew I need to keep her. The two look like they were made for each other.

antiqueenameltable
The table has two pull out leaves I use if I need more surface space. Cutting fabric on this table is like a dream!

I want to build a replacement drawer for the table. My grandfather installed the original table drawer in their kitchen because my grandmother wanted a silverware drawer. Apple meet Tree Smile.

The chair could use a little tszujng too.  The black paint on the frame is horribly chipped.  I want to keep the retro seat covering despite the drips of craft paint that mysteriously appear. How does this happen? It must be a ghost seeking revenge for some unspeakable DIY fail.

metalchairBEFORE
To make you feel better I left the overflowing trash can with paper for the recycling bin in this picture. Nah, not really. I just forgot to move it after I cleared the mid project stuff from the table to take a prettier picture.

I spent some quality time with my friend Google and found a way to get dry craft paint off of furniture – rubbing alcohol!

It took a little scrubbing with a cotton ball full of rubbing alcohol to remove the paint smears. I wish I knew about this sooner. Rubbing alcohol also works to get water based wall paint drips off baseboard trim too. Clearly the work of more upset ghosts. 

I unscrewed the seat from the chair frame. I masked off the seat edge with painter’s tape and gave the underside of the seat a new coat of black spray paint.

I painted the metal chair frame red with spray paint I had left from my painted and decoupaged bed frame project. I like the black but I hoped red would tie it to the red accent on the table legs and the bed on the other side of the room. Also, I had more red spray paint leftover from the bed project than black, there’s that.

The chair makeover took 2 coats of spray paint. After the second coat of paint dried, I flipped the chair upside down and painted it on its back and sides outside in the sun to check if I missed any spots.  I made a few touchups and allowed the paint to dry overnight.




I screwed the seat back on and reintroduced the red chair into my soon becoming retro style craft room.

What do you think?

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