Budget-Friendly Weekend Fun / DIY / weekend

DIY: Table and Chairs Update

After we got our new couch, our old one was moved in front of the large window in our living room, since we didn’t really know what we wanted to do with it.

Couch in windowIt’s a nice couch, and having the extra seating was a nice perk; but I couldn’t get over the fact that it was blocking one of the major features of our living room — the big window — and blocking a lot of light from coming into the space.

Couch in window (a mess)(Please ignore all the crap in that room, we were in the middle of our DIY when I took this.  But you can see how the couch takes up quite a bit of space in there, and why I kept telling KC that I felt like our living room looked like a waiting room with all the couches.)

KC was hesitant to get rid of the old couch, and so it sat in our living room for a few months.

Then KC started talking about our laundry room.  (Weird segue?  Just wait.)  We have this laundry room downstairs, next to our little office, that’s about 10′ x 12′, which is a good chunk of space in the world I live in.  The washer and dryer take up a little bit of the room, obviously, but the rest of the square-footage just kind of became a place to store things (our bikes, stuff from Costco, coolers, etc.).  KC had been talking about turning the laundry room into something more usable for awhile, and then it hit me — we could move the old couch down there and turn it into a family room-type space.  Genius!

However, moving the couch out of the window in the living room meant that there was kind of a big space that would be left empty.

I decided that I could make use of the two dining chairs I hadn’t gotten around to painting during the dining room DIY, and set them up with a crappy old table I bought years ago at Target.  Voila — extra seating, a good filler for the blank space, and it wouldn’t block too much of a light from the window.  Win-win.

Here’s what I started with:

Table 2Table 3A dingy, “wood” (let’s use that term loosely) table and a couple of chairs (that I forgot to photograph in their original state — just picture crappy blonde wood that’s really worn.)

I sanded everything lightly (basically, I just did a once-over with the power sander and touched up the rest by hand), wiped everything down, and then primed the three pieces with one coat of Glidden Gripper Primer in white.

Table PrimedThat primer is the business, you guys.

That got to dry overnight (since we had a dinner to go to), and then I got to painting the next day.  I chose Glidden Oyster Shell for the table and Behr Antique Tin for the chairs (I chose semi-gloss for both).

Table PaintedChairs Painted

These pieces took 2-3 coats of paint (I did 3 coats + a couple touch-ups on the top of the table, since I wanted that part to be really well-covered.)  And even though the process is a little time consuming and kind of messy (or, it is for me anyway):

Paint Hands I think the end result is pretty nice.

Here are the finished pieces in their new spot in the living room:

FinishedFinished 1Finished 2Living roomIf you’re interested in doing your own DIY for finished wood (or “wood”) furniture, here’s what you’ll need and how to do it:

  • The pieces of furniture you want to paint
  • Drop cloth
  • Medium-grit sandpaper (I used 150)
  • Optional: power sander
  • A few clean rags
  • Paint brushes/small roller/paint tray (you can do this just with brushes, but the roller is nice for painting large flat surfaces, like the top of the table)
  • Glidden Gripper Primer (If you’re painting your pieces a dark or vivid color, ask to have your primer dyed grey at the paint counter — it will be easier to cover than the white.)  I used the quart size and had some left over with these
  • Paint (I got a quart of the Oyster Shell and the Antique Tin and had plenty left over)
  1. Lightly sand all your pieces (where you’re going to paint), so the finish is just taken off.  You want to just rough up the surface a bit so the primer has something to adhere to.
  2. Wipe down your furniture to remove any dust, then apply 1-2 thin coats of primer.  Let dry for at least 1 hour, ideally overnight.
  3. Paint 2 (or more, as needed) thin coats of paint, waiting at least an hour between each coat to dry.  (If you’re working on a piece with hinges, be sure to test the moving parts periodically to make sure they don’t get painted shut.)
  4. Let dry for at least 48 hours before using (I’d recommend allowing the paint to cure for about a week before you start using your piece.  You will be able to tell if the paint is dry and set when you touch it — it should no longer feel slightly sticky or tacky.)

0 thoughts on “DIY: Table and Chairs Update

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