The Low-Down on Painting Upholstered Chairs

Here is a recap of my experience painting upholstered chairs.

Final chair pic:....pretty nice!  Now to hear about the pros and cons.

 The before....not too bad, but the fabric was OLD and faded and pretty tattered. I have 2 of these chairs. Each was $5 at a yard sale, so they were the perfect candidates to practice on.

Latex black paint and fabric medium (bought with a 40% off coupon at Hob Lob). Some websites said to mix the paint and fabric medium 1:1, but the bottle of fabric medium said 1 part medium to 2 parts paint, and I'm cheap, so that's what I went with.

From what I read, you're supposed to take a squirt bottle of water and squirt while you paint. I painted and squirted, and painted and squirted, for about 4 nights! Oh my! It took 2 quarts of black paint and bottles of fabric medium!

The fabric I was painting is old and very worn in some spots, but it is also sort of a berber carpet feel and therefore I had to jab my brush in all the little spots, and repaint and repaint! I still need to repaint!  I think the next experiment will be spray paint for fabric!

You can see below where the paint didn't cover well enough. No matter how many times I painted, there still seemed to be a lighter color showing through. This picture was taken after my 1st coat. It was MUCH better after my 3rd and 4th coats, but I still see spots of variation. I don't think anyone else would notice them at this point though.

The only other problem came when I painted TOO much in some spots that were very worn. If I did this, it would look like a chair that was painted! Very slick looking. Although it doesn't flake at all, and most the chair feels stiff, but not like I painted it.

So here's the finished product. I'm not sure I would paint any "nice" furniture (although according to the internet, many people have had success doing so. Probably depends on the fabric), but for these ugly chairs, I think it was a nice improvement for $20. 

(The lighter spots you see are actually less visible in person, so don't let that deter you).

I think these chairs may get moved to each end of my dinning room table with some chevron B & W pillows!

--Katie

Posting to:

    

http://www.allthingsthrifty.com/

http://www.creatingreallyawesomefreethings.com/

http://savvysouthernstyle.blogspot.com/2011/11/wow-us-wednesdays-41.html

http://restoreinteriors.blogspot.com/

http://www.houseofhepworths.com/2011/11/23/hookin-up-with-hoh-76/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:%20HouseOfHepworths%20(House%20of%20Hepworths)

http://somedaycrafts.blogspot.com/2011/11/whatever-goes-wednesday-92.html