Back in 1990 (that’s 22 years ago!), I bought my dining room table and chairs at a small, local furniture store that has since shut down:
As you can see, I guarded this shiny piece of wood; my kids knew better than to dump their stuff on this table! Through three different home moves and two growing boys, the table is still gleaming, just like it was back in 1990. In the meantime, I have long since been ready to do something to get rid of the now dated-looking chairs:
Back in March, as you may remember, I took a trip to the awesome Ole Sale Barn , a place rich in junk, antiques, and old furniture. I was happy that day to pick up two old, ornately carved and definitely not matching wooden dining room chairs, for just $30. a piece:
I contacted Gary Simpson Furniture Service here in Rockville, Maryland. Gary has been repairing and refinishing old furniture since 1980. He agreed to pick up four of my dining room chairs, along with the two antique chairs, to strip and repaint them all.
My dining room is an extension of my living room, and the living room colors are chocolate brown, pops of blue, and accents of pink. I needed to make sure that the dining room accented the colors of the living room, without being matchy-match.
So I knew that as far as the paint was concerned, I wanted blue. I wasn’t sure exactly which blue, and there are many. I went through a bunch of blue paint samples at Duron, and later, finally chose this strip:
I liked every color, but decided on “Cloudless,” as circled below:
On to the upholstery fabric. Given that I was looking for dining area fabric, I found two fabrics with a dishes theme:
I like them both, but they seem right for the kitchen, and not the more formal dining room. I also looked at polka-dots, which are normally one of my favorites. I liked this fabric when I saw it online. Once it arrived in the mail, it didn’t look anything like the online picture:
Nope, definitely didn’t like that one! I didn’t like this one much either:
There was something too plain, or maybe too symmetrical, about it. Although the blue dots work with the chairs, the other colors are a miss. I loved this dotted fabric, though:
Asymmetrical with different blues, fun and whimsical! The fabric was far too thin, however, to use as a seat cover. You’ll see that, finally, after much work and thinking, I decided on a trendy and fun giraffe print, with the perfect blue to match the chairs.
And here is the first old chair, refinished, painted, and covered…Ta Dah!
Isn’t she a looker? Here’s a picture of the other grand lady:
And here’s the whole deal, newly stripped and painted original chairs, along with the dining table:
And a closer view:
Don’t you just love it when you finish a project? Especially when you really like the results, and I am in love! I’ll be back soon with pictures of the living room (I’ve made some changes there, too!), and of the living room and dining room together. Have a happy Wednesday!
