How We Updated Our Dining Room Chairs

Last week when I got tired of packing I decided to take a little break and do some painting. This will be the fourth place that Jon and I will have lived since we got married. Before each of our previous  moves I painted and recovered furniture and made pillows and did as much work ahead of time as I could, so that when we moved in I would have a head start on each room. This move I hoped to do that as well, but I quickly discovered that with two helpers just packing alone was going to be quite an accomplishment to have done in time! So, I gave up on my grand plans of stripping and repainting multiple dressers and other furniture pieces and making new bedding for Lillie and Lola's new room and just went with the two easiest projects on my list  - quickly repainting the porch chairs and then sprucing up the two french chairs in our dining room. 

Now, if you are wondering why I would bother to redo the french chairs let me show you. About a month or two ago we decided to let Lola start sitting in a chair without her highchair in the set. When we removed the high chair seat part from the french chair we discovered lots of things had been dripping down through her seat and all these lovely stains greeted us:

The first thing I did was remove the seat. This one actually doesn't have any screws so you just pull it out. It does take a good bit of wiggling though seeing how it fits in there very tightly. Our new house is quite dark so I am planning on really lightening it up as soon as we move in by painting all of the walls and trimwork. I am going to do lots of white and grays and so am trying to get away from some of creams and browns we have now. On some of our pieces this won't be possible but I'd like to lighten up as many as I am able to. For these chairs as well as the dining chairs on our porch I painted over the creamy color with Dove White by Benjamin Moore. (I also plan on waxing it but haven't gotten to that yet and at this point probably won't until we are settled in our new place.)

Fortunately they didn't take too long to paint and just took two light coats. I am planning on distressed the white a little bit but haven't gotten to that yet.

Next up was recovering the seat. Although I do like the fabric (and would use it in a bedroom) it wasn't what I had in mind for the seat. I was looking for something more muted with a lighter gray. Unfortunately though I decided to do this last minute so didn't have time to order any fabric online and just ended up running to both of the fabric stores we have here in town and this was the best option I could find that had gray and white in it.

I have changed these cushions out quite a bit. I think this was the fifth or sixth different time I've recovered them. It such an easy and inexpensive way to switch things up and because it's easy I don't have to stress too much if we have a major spill.  You just lay the fabric down with the backside up and then center the seat on top of it upside down.

Then I trim around the fabric leaving enough space to fold it over the sides of the chair and allow at least an inch or two to be stapled.

And then I start stapling.

I kind of fold it like this as I got around the corners. As long as you pull it nice and tight it won't be noticeable at all when the seat is back in place.

And there you have it! Now they look clean and fresh and ready for our new house.

 

And here they are back in their place at the table:

And if you are wondering why those shots are so cropped - well, because the rest of our house looks like this:

At the end of this week this will be someone else's house and we will be loading up the moving truck - ahhh!