apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Oh - Bad memories of the Michigan School System...

Don't change a thing! They're very cool and textural as they are. If your daughter is little and will be playing with them, they'll just get banged up anyway- and they'd look awful with chipped bright paint.

I love them as is just clean them up with a good wood soap and polish. They will give a more updated or modern interior character.

Me, too, bepsf -- Muskegon, to be exact. Horrors!

I think you should try cleaning these up as much as possible before deciding whether you want to paint them. Getting rid of the rust and dirt will probably make these guys look 100% better. If you do paint the metal, I'd go with a softer slate blue or grayish-blue rather than a bright color.

the paint may well have lead in it, so you might want to test it before deciding what to do. if the wood is splintered just sand it with very fine grit and maybe wax the wood. i think they'd look great with the metal painted. i understand the interest in leaving them as is, but as a used-to-be little girl, i wouldn't have wanted them left as is. i think a bright color of her choice would look great. make sure, if you paint, that you get a paint created for painting metal. you could even get really wild and paint them in dots or stripes or something like that. ask her what she likes, that will tell you most of what you need to decide. :-)

i think they'd look nice with the metal spray painted red or white or lavender

I like the weathered look, but if you want to freshen them up with color, I would powder coat them, instead of painting.

We priced out powder coating a vintage patio set, and it was going to run us about $35 a piece. This is of course more expensive than painting, but the finish will last forever.

I'm with slowdown on the cleaning tip.

I would definitely get the metal powder coated in a bright, fun color, and leave the wood alone. Peacock blue or red sounds great! Does anybody have any suggestions on places in Chicago to get things powdercoated for a reasonable price? I'm actually looking to get some vintage steel lawyers bookcases painted, and the one quote I got was pretty high (much higher than JulieLeanne's estimate).

^JulieLeanne, how do you go about getting something powder-coated?? I have some patio furniture that could use it.

How about an automotive paint shop as another refined and professional looking treatment?

If it were me, I'd take them all apart, get the metal pieces done, and treat the wood separately. You could clean and lightly "sand" the wooden pieces with 0000 grade steel wool and some paint thinner (go with the grain). Let it dry well, and then do a couple go overs with danish oil...and then finally a light coat of butcher's wax, buff...and then reassemble. The wood will have a very natural appearance without a goopy plasticy polyurethane feel.

So, I actually went through the pain of refinishing the exact same chairs (except mine had the desk-board attachment). Here is what happened during my project:

1) I took all wood panels off and sanded those by hand without a hitch. The only small snag I encountered was taking the bolts off.

2) Taking sandpaper or a powered sander to the chair most likely will not give you the finish you want. It looks like your chairs are as old as mine, which means the paint is too old to want to come off, and no consumer-end chemical will take it off (i even tried Choke Carb cleaner, believe it or not-- it takes car tint off like magic!).

There are also too many nooks and crevasses on and under those chairs that will make it a very labour-intensive sanding process. In addition, any hand-applied abrasive will leave uneven scratches on this metal, unless you use fine sandpaper. I spent 3 full weekends trying to strip the paint off myself, before...

3) ... eventually sourcing out a powder-coating vendor, and having them just sandblast my 2 metal desks for under $50. I then added a thin clear-coat on my own that wasn't glossy, yet still retained the grainy sand-blasted metal aesthetic.

Cheers!
Pavla

go with your gut!!

Love the idea of powdercoating them in peacock blue (or turquoise!) and then finishing the wood as jbrajcki suggested... beautiful!

Hi Kristi...I bought very similar chairs and they were pretty rusty. I cleaned and sanded them, but I thought they actually looked worse than before so I decided to go ahead and paint. I couldn't get the wooden seats or backs off because they're riveted on, but after some careful masking and taping they look pretty good with a fresh coat of spray paint (on the metal only). I sprayed on a couple of coats of gloss polyurethane over the whole thing and they've held up really well. I did them last summer and they still look new.

Let me know if you want me to post a picture!

I agree with cometz. get them cleaned up and have your daughter decide. it will be something you two can work on together and the chairs will become even more valuable to your daughter.

Paint Em!
kids go allllll day sitting in boring chairs at school... make these something that she would actually want to sit in. and let her choose the colors. if they're for her, then why not...

as far as getting the paint off, don't waste all of your time and energy. just sand them as much as you can, or until they are smooth and then just spray paint them. i've painted plenty of metal surfaces this way. i've actually had paint stick better to rusted bike parts than fully clean bare metal. and since they're for your daughter, i feel that she would probably be more excited about chairs that her mom painted for her than ones that were painted by some stranger. spray paint, a couple coats of clear coat and you'll have one happy daughter :D

I painted one for a kindergarten teacher who uses it for sharing time.

I cleaned the rust, primed and painted them with paint made for covering metal and put a couple of coats of clear coat. Unless your daughter is a born hippie, she won't appreciate the "history" of the vintage chairs.

As for me...Catholic schools...Sister Joseph...shiver...

I think if you just remove the existing paint -- i.e. just stripping down to the original metal -- that will look better than bright glossy paint.

I agree with JulieLeanne about the powder coating.

No bright paint for this chairs ;-D

SherryBinNH --

No kidding?
I was at Kincheloe AFB just south of Sault Ste Marie...

...I hated those chairs. We had to flip them over and put them on our desks every night so the cleaning people could sweep the floors - I can't count the times I scraped a knuckle on those stupid frames. They were so cold and damnably uncomfortable to sit on too...

It's the kid's call, Kristi. What color(s) does she want? Those hard-on-the-tush chairs need some quilty cushions and neat stuff like tassles and even cool stickers attached. Make a trip to Michael's and get out your paints and glue gun. This is a "mother/daughter" project she'll cherish. Do you're best with clean-up and priming, etc. but don't get hung up, ultimately the end result is what counts. ENJOY!

thanks for all of the ideas. so far, i just cleaned them really well and my little one has been loving them.

i will look into the powder coating, too, thanks! the one issue i know i will run into is that they are riveted. so, i would have to somehow keep all of the wood protected in order to do anything to the metal.

my daugther is only a year and a half right now, so she doesn't really care what i do! i just want them to be cute and cheery!

giggit- i would love to see pictures!!! thanks!
and to everyone who said they reminded them of bad school days in michigan: the chairs were actually made in grand rapids by american seating company. so, you're not far off. i think they are charming, though, so we will have to agree to disagree :)

I was all set to tell you to paint them because most little girls don't like things that look imperfect or beat up and are self-conscious about what their friends say--but then you said she's really just a baby! In that case I would clean them up and leave them as is, so that she only knows them in their "well-loved" state.

That will at least buy you a few years, until she is four or so and enters the all-pink "princess" stage.

Hi Kristi! Here's a link to the photos:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29878482@N02/sets/72157618596004516/

At least with this project, it's easy enough to see how you feel after each step. Once you clean them up, you might decide you like the way they look as is, or maybe you'll want to sand and then stop there. I'm sure it will look great whatever you decide.

My son is two and a half and we have a lot of playdates here. These chairs have taken a lot of abuse, but with a few coats of poly, they've held up really well.

Good luck!
Jen

jen/gigget- adorable! this is totally the look i am going for. now, i just need the time to do it :)

thanks!

"the chairs were actually made in grand rapids by american seating company."

Now that you mention it that sounds mighty familiar -
I remember reading that label every schoolday morning from 1st grade through 6th grade...
...same company made our desks too.

Leave 'em be, I think they're adorable the way they are.