The first to-do on my list is to was to find new chairs for cheap – and I mean cheap. In the heat of the moment at our garage sale, I sold part of our “collection” of hand-me-down dining chairs. After that we were stuck using half folding chairs, half wooden chairs. After the garage sale, we took a trip to IKEA, where I picked up these two white slipcovered chairs. I highly recommend them if you are in the market for a basic Parsons style chair. That solved part of our problem, but I still wanted to replace the mismatched chairs and go back to using the folding chairs for their real purpose – extra seating.

{author’s personal collection}

My dream chairs are the Thonet Bentwood Chairs, featured below in the now-defunct domino. Growing up my grandmother had a version of these chairs with caning seats and I have always wanted a set. I found a source for them at a reasonable price ($99 per chair), but they are not in the decor budget just yet – other pieces of furniture are higher on my want list. (Like a new sofa to replace the plaid one and provide us with an extra bed for guests.)

{left: from domino, photographer unknown; right: from domino May 2007, photographer Dittie Isager}

I set out searching for a cheaper, temporary alternative. I remembered a photograph of Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick’s Hampton house dining room with different chairs all painted black. I loved this look, it seemed eclectic, but still unified!

{Elle Decor, photographer William Waldron}

So I headed to some thrift stores in search of four to six different chairs, possibly using one of the hand-me-down chairs we already had. On our first trip to a nearby Goodwill, Nick and I stumbled upon four matching chairs with good bones and a cloth seat for only $8.99 each. On Tuesdays, they offer a discount if you hold a rewards card from a casino. Jackpot! We did and we were able to score all four chairs for less than $25. That’s exactly the kind of cheap I was looking for.

{author’s personal collection}

N removed the seat cushions and the old fabric. I sanded the chairs to rough them up and painted them using Home Depot’s paint and primer in one in black. After two coats, they were good to go and I used wipe on polyurethane to make them more durable and wipeable.

A note about painting furniture: I painted my desk this summer with no problems. I primed separately using a tacky primer from Home Depot, then painted, and polyed. The desk is fabulous – not perfect, but super shiny and durable just the way I wanted. For the chairs, the poly did not dry as well; after a few days of drying it was still really tacky. I left them in the sun and that helped, but I can still see some streaks from the poly. I would recommend priming and painting separately, not using the all-in-one. That and not giving the chairs as much drying time in between coats of paint might be the reasons I didn’t have the best luck with this project. For more information, on painting furniture see Bryn from Bryn Alexandra Interiors’ guide and Jenny from the Little Green Notebook’s tips.

At a designer’s tag sale last year, I’d picked up a remnant of this caning fabric from Michael Miller for $10. It was perfect for the seats – I’d get my caning after all! After the chairs were painted and the polyurethane dried, Nick stapled the fabric onto the seats and put them back onto the chairs.

{author’s personal collection}

All things considered, I am really pleased with the way the chairs turned out. The full reveal of the dining and living room will be coming soon. Up next on the to-do list: the gallery wall.

Have you finished any home decor projects lately? Had any experiences painting and/or recovering furniture? Do share!