- I bought some Bergere chairs off Craigslist about a month ago.
- They had crazy pink upholstery and an "antiqued" white finish.
- I am going to reupholster them.
Well, when last we met, I was guilty of a little BUI -- Blogging Under the Influence. So this time around I'm going to try to be a little more thorough with my explanations of what exactly I'm doing here.
Today it was absolutely beautiful in NYC; I really couldn't have asked for a better day to get started on prepping and painting my chairs. In the last post I left off not having removed the upholstery from the seats of the chairs. I spent about 20-30 minutes getting the fabric and upholstery off. The seats had a little more glue holding them on and I wasn't able to pull them off by hand the way I did the backs and armrests. I used one of those Husky 14-in-1 painting tools. I'm pretty much obsessed with it and use it for everything. It can even work as a screwdriver in a pinch.
It looks like this: 
So, after I had removed the staples (yes, the seat was done with staples, not upholstery tacks like the backrest), I peeled back the upholstery to see what was inside. There was a layer of Dacron directly under the outer fabric followed by a layer of green faux horsehair (I had to look that one up). It has sort of the same texture as the real horsehair, but it's mounted on a backing for structure. Beneath that was a layer of Hessian followed by the structure of the seat (presumably webbing that holds up the structure of the seat.)
I didn't go beyond that layer of Hessian because, well, what's the point!? I don't mind if it gets a little paint on it and I certainly don't want to do extra work rebuilding something that is perfectly good. So the seat structure stays.
Now let me jump back a moment -- before I did any of this I 
had to go out and buy the paint for the frame. I headed over to the Michael's on 99th and Columbus and quickly located their spray paint selection. There wasn't really a true navy blue, so I decided to go with "Regal Blue." It seemed like the darkest blue they had. I also picked up a can of their gray spray primer. Now, I just want to say that I rarely (if ever) get carded in a bar or liquor store, but these spray paint people take their jobs VERY seriously. I wasn't even allowed to walk the paint up to the cashier myself.
Okay, so I bought the paint (3 cans + 1 can of primer) and when I got home I changed into some painting clothes and headed up to the roof. The first thing I did was sand down the frame of each chair to ensure that there would be a nice tooth for the primer to grab onto. I also had to take a little time to fix a few spots where the finish on the chairs had cracked or chipped off and make sure there was a nice smooth transition between the old finish and the bits of raw wood.
Next I gave the the chairs a light coat of primer. I cannot stress enough how important it is to do very light even coats when spray painting! It seems like it's going to take forever, but I promise it won't. Not only does your finish turn out better if you do it this way (no drips... duh), but they also dry waaay faster between coats.
Once my primer had dried, I started painting the top coat. I have to say... I was a little freaked out at first because it wasn't exactly the color I had expected. Basically it was REALLY blue. Like super primary blue.
Then I thought about it and recalled seeing something similar in Anthropologie (or convinced myself that I saw something like it in Anthropologie) and decided that it probably wouldn't be so bad after all. So I finished up and the chairs ended up taking several coats of paint each.
Now here's the craziest thing of all... When I got them down into my apartment where the sun isn't shining DIRECTLY on them, they magically turned dark blue. The lighting in my living room is such that they basically read as navy. Awesome. My Anthro fantasies were for naught... Whatevs.
Here are a few more photos... and at the end a little preview of coming attractions:
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