musical chairs

It was always my dream to have mismatched chairs around my farmhouse style dining table. I don't know why exactly, but there was something very free spirited about it. Lucky for me, P was in complete agreement, though his stipulation was that all of the chairs at least be the same color, which I was more than happy to do! I found all of my chairs at various charity shops all over London, which was an amazing way to get what I wanted without breaking the bank. I found one pair of chairs down the road from our place for only £14! Talk about a bargain! Since I knew I would be sanding the chairs down and repainting them, it didn't make much sense to spend a ton of money...

The chairs were slightly more complex than the dresser, which was basically one giant flat surface. I took more time with the chairs, as they had more nooks and crannies than the dresser. When I bought all the chairs, they weren't all in the best shape. There were little nicks and scratches, which I sanded away with a little hand sander I'd bought on Amazon a few months ago. There wasn't too much to fix, but I was able to pretty solidly clean up the chairs. Then I painted the first coat of chalkboard paint with a small brush. It wasn't the nicest job I've ever done but the focus was getting paint on every bit of surface. It didn't have to look pretty just yet! Once I got them all covered, I let the paint dry overnight. I wanted to make sure each layer was as smooth as possible, so with a 320 grit sandpaper, I went over each chair, smoothing out some of the bad spots, but not doing a full sanding job. It was just to make sure that the second coat looked nice and smooth, which it did!
Once the second coat was dry, the chairs were looking pretty good. This time though, using the same 320 grit sandpaper, I sanded the chairs more thoroughly. This left them looking much softer as the sanding got rid of some of the lines from the brushes, and made the color a bit brighter. Once I was done sanding, there were a few spots on each chair that needed a little touching up with paint so I filled in those spots. Once the paint had dried (several hours later) I sanded them a little bit to smooth out the look. 
I learned a new trick after having a little bit of trouble waxing the dresser. By warming the wax first, I found it went on much smoother. I sat the can of wax in a bowl with some hot water (hot but not boiling...) so that it would soften. Once it was nice and malleable, I painted it onto the chairs, wiped off the excess, and then let the wax cure overnight. Once they were done, I took a cloth and buffed those babies 'til they shone bright! It was a little tough in some spots because of the shape of the chairs, but I managed to get every chair buffed pretty well!
One chair had a cushion that needed a bit of updating, so I did that while the wax cured. I found some fabric down in Brighton a few weeks ago that P and I both thought was sweet, and brought it home to be the new seat cover, along with some batting to refill the cushion. Setting those aside, I took the seat of the chair and removed the staples, fabric and cushioning that was attached. Then I cut a piece of batting and folded it up to the size of the wood. I then stretched the fabric across the batting and flipped the whole thing over. Then I just stapled the fabric to the back of the seat and cut away the excess. Easy!
I have to say, I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out! There are six chairs total, but I split it up three and three since some of them required some extra repairs, but in the end, the six mismatched chairs are quite the set. What do you guys think?

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