Last year, my mom’s friend moved to a different state, and she left behind a lot of her furniture.  My mom decided to take her dining room set, because, why not?  A free dining set.  Unfortunately they were relics from an era long gone, and I’m not talking about something you show off at the Antique Roadshow.

Maybe a few decades ago, this was the shit design and color to have, but to me, it just looks like shit.  My insincere apologies if you are a fan of this look.  My mom would not get rid of this set, much to the dismay and annoyance of the rest of my family.  As a compromise, I offered to give it a makeover.

I have never tried working with furniture before, so I did some research.  I wanted to change the back of the chairs, but I did not have the skills or time to do anything drastic, so I settled with repainting them.  I also decided to reupholster the cushions, and add more padding to them.  I mean, what I really wanted to do, was completely replace this set with a new set.  But, you know, moms.

I got the OK to do whatever I wanted with the chairs, since just about anything would be an improvement (snicker), so I went with brighter colors.

I unscrewed the old cushions and went to the crafts store to figure out how many yards of fabric to buy.

Man, that color just had to go.

I used a screwdriver to pop the old staples out.  Shout out to my friend Susie, who helped me remove the staples.

I got a staple gun to staple the new fabric to the base.  I added a piece of padding to each cushion.  The white fluff sticking out is the padding.  I didn’t want to breathe in all the dust and bits of who knows what floating in the air from the old fabric, so I got a mask.

Here is the new and improved cushion next to the old and busted cushion.

The chairs were easy to reupholster.  The sweaty and messy part was next.  I wanted to paint the chairs a cream color, so I had to first sand off the old wood stain.  It was my first time using a sander, and perhaps I could use more push ups in my life, but that sander was hard on my arms.   I read diy guides where you can sand it by hand, but I can’t even imagine how much time and arm power that would take.  I am glad I had earplugs and a face mask, because it was quite a loud and dusty job.  After I sanded as much as I could handle, I wiped down the chairs with a damp rag.

I am also new at using spray paint.  I thought it would be easier than using a paintbrush, but I was so wrong.  It took so many freaking layers of spray paint to cover up the wood color, and so many trips back to Home Depot to get more paint.  I would squeeze that blasted paint can button for hours at a time, and my fingers would be stiff and numb for days.  Shout out to my husband for taking over with the spraying when my fingers hurt too much.

It was also a pain in the ass to find a good place to spray paint.  I started off in the garage, but I ended up spraying a fine white mist all over the surrounding items in the garage.  Oops, I felt really bad about that.  I moved the chairs to the driveway, but then I had to fight with the breeze, which kept blowing paint mist everywhere.  AND not to mention the damn bugs and bits of grass and dirt that kept blowing and getting stuck in the paint.  As you can tell, this was a great learning experience…

I have received word from my dad, that my services will be needed to give another old dining set a makeover.  If they want any painting done, I will stick with the old fashioned paint can and brush.

After I finished with the painting, I sprayed on a sealant.

Once the chairs were dried, the new cushions were screwed back on.

Here is the finished chair.  It’s still not my ideal dining room chair, but it will do.