Vintage Children’s Chairs

I found three of these at a road side sale in Door County, about 3 years ago:

chair before

_oldchair-1

chair-before-2

chair-before

As you can also see, we have not had much rain around here in the midwest. :(

But that is an aside.

I finally dusted them off. The spiders had to find a new home.

One of the chairs I painted green. Bright green. Vibrant green. Pea green. Hello World green. The same green as one of the walls of Oliver’s new playroom. (Yet to be revealed to you.)

IMG_1471

green chair before (legs)

Upon closer look, I decided the wood was pretty cool. Beat up. Scratched. Stained. Perfect vintage look.

I decided to sand the second chair, and then possibly stain or varnish it.


And so I did...

Here it is prior to working on it:

chair before

 Sanded:


chair sanded

Threw some bleach on it too. Waited. Sanded that puppy some more.

 chair-sanded-1

I decided to go on the cheap and just get this:

minwax

Here’s the result:

chair-wood-refinished

 chair

May not seem like much. Just wait.

A friend of mine suggested spray paint. I am a trained, schooled painter. I do not spray anything.

So I did:

spray painting legs

 I covered the wood with plastic bags. Very professionally, of course.

spray painting legs

I practiced on the cement block. I went a little spray paint happy actually. Looking for anything and everything to spray paint. But I kept my focus. Mostly.

spray painting legs

spray painting legs

spray painting legs

And here’s the result:

 finished wooden chair

She’s beautiful, isn’t she?

finished wooden chair

I love that you can still see the scratches.

_wood-red-back-2

I wasn’t shooting for perfection. Not even with my handiwork.

_green-chair-redlegs

The backs are so beautiful.

_green-chair-redlegs2

Old back:

_back-before

Wooden, refinished back:

_back-redwood

Green back:

_back-redgreen

If I knew then what I know now, I’d have either refinished the green one too, or I’d have used an oil-based paint so that you could not see the brush marks. Oh well. Oliver loves the green one best. He keeps asking me what color I’m going to paint the wooden (red legs) one.

But the wooden one with those bright red legs is my favorite.

Not bad for $4 for 3 chairs. Plus $4 for the varnish. $6 for the spray paint. $3 for the sand paper.

Pretty maidens, all in a row:

_three-chairs

_three-chairs-2

What do you think I should do with the last one? Refinish? Red legs? Green legs? I’m spray paint happy.




Comments

  1. Love all of them but prefer the natural wood with red legs the best. :)

    I found your blog by mistake from a small house blog. I love your writing and your blog! I was having a really bad day when I found your blog and even though we are going through different things, I somehow felt better after reading.
    Thanks for sharing.

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    Replies
    1. Oh so glad you visited! And commented! :) I hope you keep visiting. I'll post photos of the third chair when I decide! :) :)

      andrea

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  2. I love the red legs with the refinished wood. LOVE! What are these chairs destiny?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You’ll see eventually. They are in Oliver’s new playroom. I will show before / after pix of that. It’s a work in progress right now. Not ready for the big reveal yet. :)

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  3. I'd give the third one red legs to keep it uniform. I'd let Oliver pick the third one's color.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh boy. He’s into “rainbows” these days. I did let him pick the playroom colors. So, of course, every wall is different. Red, blue, yellow and green. Rainbow said he.

      :)

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