Before & After: A $7 Vintage Chair Finally Blooms

Written by

Adrienne BreauxHouse Tour Director at AT Media
Adrienne BreauxHouse Tour Director at AT Media
For more than 10 years, I've led Apartment Therapy's real home content, producing thousands of house tours from around the world. Currently, I live in my maximalist dream home in New Orleans, Louisiana, with my partner, a perfect dog, and a cute cat.
published Aug 9, 2014
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(Image credit: Stef )

Stef stumbled on this $7 chair in a thrift store in Iowa while visiting her little brother in grad school. As a resident of California, she didn’t quite know how she was going to get it back home, but for $7, she’d find a way (thankfully her frequent traveling mom helped out). Once home, it sat as-is for another three years. “I stared at it, threw a sheet over it to give guests the appearance of a ‘project-under-construction’, even tried a few different paint colors to get some inspiration.” So what prompted a makeover finally? A perfect floral fabric found on eBay. See what she did!

(Image credit: Stef )

From Stef:

I stripped the wood using Citrustrip Stripping Gel and sanded it endlessly. (There was a great deal of original stain and peeling brown paint on the arms.) I needed to fill the wood in places so I used Minwax Wood Putty and sanded it to a seamless touch. I am a spray paint kind of girl. I like the even finish of spray paint so I went with Rust-Oleum’s Flat White Painters Touch 2X Ultra Cover Spray for primer. For the color, I used Rust-Oleum’s Metallics Spray in Aged Bronze. I finished it all with two coats of Rust-Oleum’s Ultra Cover 2X Satin Clear.

It is definitely a statement piece. I now keep it in my dressing area and am looking for that perfect aged brass chandelier to hang above it.

Thank you Stef!