If your kitchen chairs are crusty and stained but you don't want to replace them, brighten them up with paint. You can enhance any chair by painting over the entire surface -- wood, caning, even the upholstered seat -- and you might find the result so pretty and practical that you won't ever want to replace it. DIY Decorating & Design host Nancy Golden explains how to paint the upholstered seat of a wooden dining chair. Be aware that painting the upholstered fabric will make it stiff, like canvas, and will also waterproof it, making it easy to wipe clean with a damp rag. Materials:
Old chair
Painter's tape
Latex primer
Latex paint or acrylic craft paint
Paintbrush
Artist's brushes
Sponge
- Prepare an old chair for painting by cleaning it thoroughly. Remove the seat, and prime and paint areas of wood or caning as desired.
- Apply a coat of primer to the fabric and let dry (figure A).
- Apply a base coat of paint to the fabric and let dry. Sponge-paint masked-off areas to create borders or a checkerboard pattern, or use artist's brushes to paint polka dots, flowers or any pattern you like. This is a great way to make use of leftover latex or acrylic craft paints. For her pattern, Nancy painted the seat with a base coat of bright orange, then sponge-painted a masked-off border with a darker orange (figure B). When the border was dry, she removed the masking tape and painted a pattern of stylized flowers on the seat (figure C).
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