It's not just a chair...It's ART!

Well the "UGLY" chair has made it's transformation into a SWAN!

I sure had one heck of a time with this masterpiece!

I gathered all the supplies that I needed:

Electric sander (a must) and sandpaper (60 & 120 grit)

A scraper and painters mask

Screwdriver

I didnt look at the underside of the chair in the store....MISTAKE!

I was just so happy that I found the chair and after hubby's "ugly" comment, the chair was coming home!

Whoever put this thing together had no idea how to put fabric on a chair seat and oh what a mess!

The fabric was folded, tucked, stapled and glued to the seat!

WHAT WERE THEY DOING???

UGH!

I got the seat off and set it aside. Dealing with that mess was gonna have to WAIT!

I had a bigger mess to deal with on the chair!

I started sanding the chair with 60 grit sandpaper.

I thought about using a paint stripper but after reading the labels and the requirements for disposal I quickly opted for sanding!

60 grit was the best choice since it is so rough that it can remove wood!!!

But since there were globs and globs of paint...
I was forced to scrape!

After 2 hours of some serious labor this is what the chair looked like:

I used the 120 finish sandpaper to smooth out the roughness from the 60 grit.

If you read my post about the photo/memo board I learned my lesson about primer!

I wanted you to see why primer is such an important thing:

If you look at the center piece you can see brown spots along the edges. It would literally take 3-4 coats of paint to cover this evenly!!!

I dont have patience for 3-4 coats so I primed!

I sprayed the chair with krylon spray paint (watermelon) after the chair was completely dry!

I was a really big idiot and I painted the chair inside my garage right before we were heading out to dinner. I closed the garage door, we got in the car and headed on our way. My OCD kicked in and I started worrying myself to death that the fumes were going to ignite and catch the house on fire!!! My wonderful hubby turned right around and we went back home to ventilate the garage!!

I LOVE THAT GUY!! :)

After dinner and with a well ventilated work area, I did the final touch ups.

Then onto the seat!

UGH!

Removing these staples was literally like pulling teeth WITHOUT novacaine!

There were 106 of these things and 4 layers of fabric!!!

WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?

I finally got them all off and got to work putting the new fabric on:

Once I stapled the fabric tightly in place. I reattached the seat and here is the finished chair:

It turned out PERFECT!

If you look closely under the chair you can see the pile of staples I had to remove...unbelievable!

This DIY project was easy to do but a little more work than I bargained for lol.

Let's break it down:

Chair...$8.99

Fabric....$2.44

Spray paint....$3.24

Primer...$3.97

Sandpaper...Free (i already had it)

Total Cost...$18.64

Not too bad. I was really hoping to find a chair at a garage sale for like $2 but it didnt happen.

Goodwill had the chair priced a little high in my opinion but it is a good cause.

I am much happier with the custom chair. I would have spent $20 at Ikea for a plain, boring chair.

Now I have a one of a kind work of art!

I linked up here: