A few years ago we acquired the pink wood chairs from my in laws, Ron and Barbara. I've held onto them cause they are built really well. Very sturdy and solid. No wobbly legs. However the pink fabric is stained and a little tattered. I've taken them to a few upholstery places and the cheapest bid I received to recover them has been $400 a chair. Yikes. I can buy new chairs for $200. So that was taken out of the scenario. So what to do now? I was talking to my sister who is an interior designer and asked her advice. She gave me some color suggestions to for the walls, which I want to repaint to an updated neutral grey color. So I went to home depot and bought the color she suggested in a sample size and painted a swatch on a white board to see what the color would look like in our front room. Since I had enough left of that grey sample paint left, my sister suggested that I could try painting the fabric on the chairs. In my mind I imagined painting with a big paint brush and the fabric being stiff or rough. But as she explained how to do it, I decided not to totally throw the idea out the door. So after a few months of letting the chairs sit as they were, pink, I decided to try the painting option. I bought the Martha Stewart Medium on amazon, found the tutorial on how to paint, found below, and went for it. You can see the before and after photos below.
I had found this photo on Pinterest and imagined the chairs could look similar to this.
So after researching and looking at many tutorial options, I decided the version from 11 Magnolia Lane was the one I would follow, link below. I read and reread it over and over to make sure I understood and followed the directions to a T. I think the one thing I may have done differently, and didn't realize it till a few days after I had started, when I came back to the jar of paint with the mixture of paint, water and "Medium," that as I painted another layer of paint on the fabric, I didn't make sure that the mixture was shaken up enough, even though I shook the bottle vigorously. As I painted and it dried, the fabric seemed thick and not soft. However the pink fabric was pretty tough to begin with. However, lesson learned, and I'll do better on the second chair, still in progress.
http://www.11magnolialane.com/2013/09/09/tutorial-how-to-paint-upholstery-fabric-and-completely-transform-a-chair/
Of course Audrey wanted to help.
He is the finished result of the first chair. Since this picture I have sanded the wood a little more to show a more rustic vintage look. The grey paint color, since it was mixed with the white medium, turned out a lot lighter than I imagined, but I like the way it looks. The next project will be to paint the walls a grey tone to off set the new look of the room. In time!!
