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Cute chairs!

Paint them a solid color, preferably something dark to balance out your lighter wood furnishings. As far as the upholstery goes- go bright! You've got all kinds of good purples to go with.

My only caution is:

Even though nubby or textured upholstery fabrics are durable- they are a nightmare for a cat owner. My cat sprawls all over my chairs (just as yours are doing!) and leaves her pointy little hairs all over. It all gets stuck into the fabric, and bam- I'm spending 20 minutes per chair trying to make them look less like hairballs.

Look for a fabric that has a very tight weave so that you can use a lint roller to pick up the hair!

If it were me, I'd strip them and stain them ebony, then reupholster in something that includes the cream color of the ikea chairs. Which doesn't really deal with the paw prints issue. Scotch-gard? Make them wear little galoshes?

I say ditto to shockthebourgeois, I have a chair in my kitchen with nubbly fabric that now has a big puke stain from my plant-eating kitty. yuck! Now I have to re-upholster it cause it wont come out.

I'd stain 'em black and upholster the seats in an ivory boucle...

I've got no opinion whatsoever on those chairs - I just had to comment that it looks like your cats are giving each other high fives, down low.

Nothing kills a good piece of furniture like a bad paint job!

Sandpaper and Minwax Polyshades will be your new friends. Just sand off the old clearcoat and the polyshades will color/stain/seal. You can do a darker ebony stain which will still let some of the woodgrain show through. That little bit of visual depth can make all the difference between something looking good, or looking bland and plastic.

You can do a good quality vinyl for durability/cleanability in a fun color. (I'd go lime green like the tiny plate on the far wall) The chairs are easy enough to recover that you could use just about any fabric and if it gets icky, gross, boring you can change it.

shockthebourgeois : 3M Scotch Fur Fighter - this takes a lot a LOT of cat hair out of my super textured/weave sofa (which I bought pre-cat).

maybe I don't know what I am saying but...maybe paint the bases cream/tan (pulling from your drapes/sofa pillows) with fabrics with a pattern in pink/purple/brown or a combination of with white in it.

...or you could go to the local Salvation Army and get a 3 pullover sweaters to cut up and use as seat upholstery.

(2 seats from each sweater - front and back)

beautiful kitties!

i would paint them black to match the Ikea chairs and then reupholster them all the same fabric (I would go for a graphic print, but I don;t really know what your taste is). I like the look of different shapes of chairs done up the same way as opposed to really mis-matched ones.

frozenemotion9: Ooh! Good find- I'm going to have pick some of that up. I'm a girl who loves black furniture... so I don't know what I was thinking getting a white cat. (Especially one who seems to love rubbing her furry little self all over everything)

I think I would reupholster the IKEA chairs in red, then paint the new chairs red and upholster them in black or a black and red fabric, maybe. They would go together but still look different. (Maye you can find a nice fabric containing red and black for both seats... or, if red doesn't zing you, same concept using purple and black or chartreuse and black...)

I think you should paint them white and reupholster the seats with black fabric so the colors will match, but it won't look like you are trying to match different chairs. Also, the kitties won't be able to stain the black fabric.

1. Don't paint them please, stripping is better, down to the blonde wood.
2. Re recovering: How ' bout a good old fashioned 1950's tweed from some crazy skirt or a hand knit irish sweater from the thrift shop?Both sponge off mud, just ask the Brit royals.
2.Your cats are super cute.

PS screw the Ikea chairs,to be frank, they have no class. Just mix and match or live with the 2 great finds until you get better ones.

The kitties and the chairs' present fabric go so beautifully together!

Make them the opposite of the Ikea chairs -- paint them cream, and upholster with very dark leather.

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone! You've helped narrow my options, if not quite make a decision yet. I'll send photos when the project is done.

no need to do anything; just keep the kitties sitting on them!