Finally . . . a Turquoise Chair Makeover

UPDATE: see here for the turquoise chair makeunder!

After pining for turquoise, especially turquoise chairs (and even putting “paint a piece of furniture turquoise” on my 30 before 30 list), I finally did it!  I painted a chair turquoise.  But this is a transforming chair that underwent a makeover and makeunder in rapid succession.  Here’s the first reveal (because who likes to wait until the end of a post?):

I feel like a ta-da is in order.  Although I try to be pretty DIY productive, some projects sit on the back burner forever and when they are finally completed it feels like a huge deal, although to the rest of the world it might not seem so important.

Here’s What I Did:

I started with this basement-dweller, a Value Village find from 2007.  I like the patina but grew tired of it after a few years.  Despite a few missing hunks, it’s a good solid chair that is surprisingly comfy (I think because of its curvy back and grooved seat), so instead of setting it free, I banished it to the basement where, unsurprisingly, I covered it in paint by accident.  I ruined the lovely patina, built up over 60 years.

I gave the whole piece a light hand sand, then we used a belt sander to remove the paint from the seat.  We did a rough job so it didn’t make one section look brand new while the rest kept its 60 year old patina.  I also left a bit of the paint that had soaked into the grain.  Then I applied strips of painter’s tape in a controlled-chaos random pattern.  I wrapped the tape right under the seat, too.

To avoid any unsightly paint bleeding (like with the painted tray), I pressed down the edges of the tape with the handle of a pair of scissors, to make sure it was fully stuck everywhere.

Like we did with the last chair makeover, we hammered in small nails to the legs so the chair would “float” and not get glued to the cardboard with paint.

I applied a couple of thin coats of primer.  I used Rust-oleum Painter’s Touch primer in white and loved it!  It has great coverage and went on smoothly and evenly.  I used the whole can, but I was pretty obsessive about painting the underside and getting into all of the little grooves.

Then I started spraying.  I splurged on the paint: Liquitex Professional Spray Paint Viridian Hue Permanent 7.  It’s the fancy-pants stuff normally behind a locked cage at Michael’s (I’m going to do a follow-up post because the paint was nicer, but trickier, than the hardware store brands).  With a coupon, it was only a few cents over $10 bucks and the coverage was phenomenally rich and dreamy.

I sprayed the underside first, then flipped it over onto the nails and kept spraying.  

I carefully removed the tape while the paint was still tacky, so no scoring was required and no paint was peeled off during the process.  And, sweetness, no leakage!

Please enjoy this excessive number of after photos.

Are you thinking, “cute, but . . . . “?  Me too.  Check back later this week to see the tiny little change.