Retro-Refinished Table and Chairs

[leah]

This kitchen set came with the house my family bought in the 70's. ðIt was relagated to the basement where my siblings and I used it as a table for finger painting, spin-art, and other such messy activities.

The table and chairs were their natural brown wood color and the chair seats were covered in lovely mustard yellow vinyl. ðAs yummy as that was, we thought it might have potential for refinishing. ðI wish I could find the pictures of this table and chairs set from before we refinished it!

This was my first such refinishing project.

We basically just sanded down the dried on finger paint and most of the varnish on the table and chairs. ðThen we put on about 5 gazillion coats of high-gloss, black latex paint. ðWe learned:

painting with dark paint = lots of coats of paint

or you see all kinds of uneven-ness.

Then we coated the whole thing with protective shellac although we're still scared to death to put down a glass without a coaster!

For the chair seats... It so happens that these chair seats are meant to come off and be covered with whatever you want. ðSo we unscrewed them, removed the mustard vinyl (under which we found a layer of pine green vinyl and a layer of maroon vinyl which we left there) and then covered the seats with 50s-style atomic bark-cloth (from http://www.reprodepot.com). ðThe fabric is held on by small tack-like nails.

[artzyfartzy]

Ooh i love that chair set! bravo! i just recently covered my black computer chair w/a groovy-fabric almost like that!..

I just finished making the lite-brite table from readymade mag and i finally got some pix taken. i gotta upload them & post ! promise*

[leah]

ooh... please do post them! show off your hard work baby!

[rubyseedless]

Fantasic transformation! I painted a whole set of dark brown kitchen chairs glossy black and reuhpolstered the seats with turquoise vinyl and silver upholstery tacks.  For the painting part, I used two little cans of Rustoleum glossy enamel black (the kind you paint on with a brush) and found it provided excellent coverage, only two coats per chair and no need to shellac afterwards.  So easy, and great looking, you want to paint all your furniture that way. Ruby

[leah]

ruby, those chairs sound really great! wanna post a picture? I often see chairs out in people's trash piles that I'd like to re-do...

[Cherry Cola]

Those chairs look great. I love the fabric on them, looks fantastic with the black too! Great job!

- cherry

[Goddess]

that came out just lovely...darn I should have refinished my old nasty table instead of buying my cool new one from pier one....but I can tell ya it woulnd't have come out as nice as yours

[BadKittyUSA33]

that looks totally kewl! great job!

[joeyjojo666]

Those chairs are lookin' suh-weet!! Nice job mama.

-Joey

[shes crafty]

thanks for the great link to bark cloth.  it's my favorite kind of fabric and ususally not cheap!

[Crafty Fox]

I love the sleek look that the glossy black paint gives to the tables and chairs. And at first glance, the fabric looks like some sort of colorful Japanese patchwork. Between that and the black gloss, the set has a funky pseudo- Asian kind of look, which I really like. Great job

I am inspired to do a similar project for my "reading room".

~Crafty Fox

[cowgirl]

great job! they look brand new!

[teri]

they came out beautifully! nice work