Houston, We Have Chairs

Last week I shared these chairs with you, they were decidedly not awesome. Here's a refresher of how they looked.

And a close up of one of the chairs' highlights:



I actually got five of these chairs for $50 from craigslist. So on Sunday I got to work. First I took off the seats from the chairs and then cleaned them (they were gross) and lightly sanded the chairs. They looked like this:



Since I wasn't staining these chairs, a light sanding was all I needed to do. The big plan for these was every DIYers secret weapon: spray paint. Rustoleum Black Gloss spray paint specifically.

Now, full disclosure here. I didn't start out thinking I would spray paint these chairs. I thought I'd just go with latex paint. That was a bad idea. As soon as I got some of the paint on the first chair I knew it was a bust. The paint wasn't nearly black enough (even though I got the blackest black I could find) and it was gunking up (technical term) on the top part of the chairs. Sunk cost: about $7.00 for a quart of paint (it was no VOC too) plus $0.60 for a sponge brush.

Then I high tailed it to Home Depot and bought a bunch of cans of spray paint (thank goodess Home Depot is only five minutes away). I used 4 cans of spray paint to cover all five chairs ... but I also broke the nozzle thing on one of the cans while I was shaking it up so it wasn't usable ... sunk cost: $3.50 for extra unusable can of spray paint.

After I sprayed down the chairs I left them hanging out in the backyard to dry (I wonder what my neighbors thought??) while The Hubs and I walked the dogs. When I got back, I got to work on the seats. Jo Ann Fabrics is also only five minutes from my house so I picked up some batting, some Poly-Fil, and 2.25 yards of light neutral fabric. The fabric was about $15.00, the Poly-Fil was $5 and the batting was about $12.

Another part of full disclosure: I got waaaaaaay too much batting. I actually got enough to cover a queen size bed - I'm really bad at math and couldn't figure out how much I needed. Sunk cost: about $5 - the difference between what I bought and the smaller sizes.

The seats had virtually no cushioning left in them so I wanted to add quite a bit of fluff to make them comfortable. I thought about using several layers of batting but I still didn't think that would really give me the comfort level I was looking for. Instead I created a quasi-pillow with the batting and the poly-fil. I cut the batting to size and stapled it down on 3 sides. Then, just like a pillow, I stuffed some of the poly-fil between the seat and the batting. When that was done I stapled down the fourth side.

When that was done I simply screwed the new cushy cushions back onto the now dry chair frames and voila! Brand new chairs!



And then I actually brought the chairs inside and sat them at the table.
(Sorry for the dark pic ... it's hard to take a photo of black furniture at night with little light.)



Cost breakdown for my "new" chairs:

$50 for all five chairs on craiglist
$18 for spray paint (including busted can)
$7.60 for failed paint
$12 for batting
$15 for fabric
$5 for poly-fil
Total cost for 5 chairs: $107.60.
Plus I have tons of leftover batting, poly-fil, fabric, and useless black latex paint.