Brightening Up a Vintage Chair

So my awesome new desk needed an awesome new chair, right? Luckily, my mom bought this chair in a lot of random things at a roadside auction for literally a couple bucks and I claimed it before my older sister could! With a coat of paint and new fabric for the seat it was totally transformed!

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the detail in the back rungs of the chair. The existing finish was pretty rough, to the point that it looked like someone appplied the last coat of stain with a trowel. There were way to many layers of stain on this thing and I think that was taking away from the awesome details in the back. I did this at the same time as I was doing my dining set, so I figured I would just sand it and put it in line with the rest of my chairs for a coat of white paint! The sanding was pretty frustrating and took a long time, but I wanted the finish to be nice and smooth, so I had to level out all of the drips and bumps in the existing stain and rough it up enough for the paint to adhere. Take a look at my post titled "Dining Set Redo - July 2011" to see what color and type of paint I used and how I applied it.

For the seat cushion, I used this fabric, which was actually a discontinued sample that I got when I interned at a Interior Design Showroom. These things are the perfect size for a smaller chair cushion like this. Family and Friends- I still have a bin of these that you are welcome to look through! Out here, there is also a thing called ZeroLandfill Pittsburgh. They accept discontinued fabric, carpet and wood samples, and basically anything other watse you can think of from the interior design, architecture and graphic design industries and then makes these things available to local students, teachers and other artistically minded people. Check them out on facebook! This fabric went perfectly with the look I was going for and even matched the handles I bought for the drawers of the desk! After the paint was completely dry (wait atleast a day or two) I reassembled the chair and voila! Vintage chair restored to a new life in my first apartment!