Goodwill Chair Makeovers

I have always seen these great posts about people who find deals at Goodwill, I have been to Goodwill many times and never scored a deal..until now!! I had gone by a couple of weeks ago on a Friday and saw a dining room chair that may have worked - but it was $10 and I did not have $10 at that moment- so I walked away. I thought about that chair all weekend long...so Monday I quickly went back to the Goodwill on my lunch break! And SCORE! not only was the chair marked down to $5 but there was another one too for just $5!! I did the seat wiggle test (you know butt in chair, now wiggle to see if the legs are stable) and they both passed!! I quickly grabbed both and headed for the registers!!

I figured this one would be perfect to replace my rolling computer chair, but my daughter picked it for her dressing room instead- because it was prettier!!


So this would be my new office chair...maybe??

These sat in my garage for a few days, with my son asking daily if today would be the day we could start painting. Finally it was time- but first we needed some supplies. I had never repainted furniture before so I had no idea what to do- thankfully there were plenty of blogs out there with step by step instructions.

The first step was to sand the chairs and remove the finish already on them-we used the electric sander and I have to say it quickly removed the finish- a little too quickly in some spots!! LOL

Next up was to dust them off with a rag and prime them - we used Kilz2 water based because this was what we had leftover from painting a room earlier. You need to put on two very thin layers of primer- VERY THIN!!! My son started on the office chair and I started on my daughter's chair- I was done in 1/2 the time he took but I put mine on a bit thicker and in the end my chair had drip marks where his looked perfectly even. We waited and hour in between layers.

The next day we started on the paint- my son was really enjoying this and since I absolutely hate to paint (and his looked much better then mine) I decided to turn the project over to him. So he started painting the first layer on the office chair. We did not paint the underside of the chairs- because well no one sees them and it was easier for us to move them if we knew we had at least one spot that we could touch before it was completely dried.

2 layers of paint and 24 hours later we applied the Minwax Polycrylic water based sealant and then decided to wait another 24 hours before we brought them inside.

And here they are: I love them and think my son did an awesome job!

The office chair color is valspar liquid jade 5003-6B from Lowe's. It had a little more teal in it then I had hoped but I still found a perfect place for it! The back on it was too short to be my office chair but it found a great home at my front door by the entry table. Which just happens to be across from my office and now each time I look up from my computer I see it and it makes me smile. Look for this to show up in a post later this month when I show you my front entry Valentine's decorations.

My daughter's chair was painted Valspar Savvy Pink 1006-4B and it is perfect in her dressing room as you saw on yesterday's post!

Oh and a funny story about the paint- I am so use to only buying paint for bedrooms that I asked for a gallon of paint instead of a quart!! We barely even used any of it so I have plenty of these colors left over for future projects...unfortunately though it cost me at least twice what it should have in paint. So if you are going to paint furniture you can easily get by with a quart- maybe even just one of those sample jars depending on what you are painting!!

Inspiring you,

~Elizabeth

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Winter Wreath with Rosettes

I have had some DIY projects on my To Do List the past few days to keep us occupied during the last few days of our holiday break! One of those projects was a winter wreath to replace the christmas swag I had on my front doors- I did not want to go long without something up because we have glass front doors- and I felt it was too early for Valentine's day wreaths- although had I found 2 red berry wreaths on clearance I may have scratched this project altogether!

I had some old grapevine wreaths left over from my nest photography prop (so excuse their mishapen circle shape!!!) You can find these new at Michael's for around $5-$10 depending on size. I believe these were the 18" size which is $5. I knew I wanted to use those and some funky blue coloring for a winter wreath. I had actually purchased this blue spray paint for a project I thought I would use in my new office but never got around to it!! We have been so blessed to have very mild weather this past week- like in the 50's and 60's to complete this project!


First we spray painted it blue. I used Valspar Mediterranean gloss spray paint.

Then once it was dry- about 24 hours because we painted both sides and I did not want to take a chance that this might rub off on my front doors!! We started on the flower rosettes. I did take photos of making the rosette but I never realized how bad my hands looked close up- definitely not a hand model over here- so I will just link you to the tutorial I found on them at the end. Trust me it's in your best interest!!

The only thing I did different was at the end before I glued by final piece to the back I added a piece of fabric covered flower wire so I could twist them on the wreath - You could have hot glued them to the wreath but this sounded easier to me.

My original goal was to make 5 on each wreath but as you can see the first ones turned out a bit smaller then I had hoped so I had to add a 2nd layer to each one to make them fat enough for my wreath!! Now I will say making the rosettes was not as hard as I thought it was going to be- but it was very time consuming and tedious. I don't see many of these on my projects in the future!!!

Finally 6 rosettes and 3 days later the wreaths were done!! If I have time I may go back and make a few more for each one but probably not!! LOL

I am glad I made them- I love the grapevine wreath color but I may do something else to them besides the rosettes- thankfully since they are just attached with the floral wire I can remove them easily if I want to change things up a bit.

Sorry about the white coloring- I know it's had to see the detail on these from afar.

Here is the link for the Rosette Tutorial

Happy New Year!
~ Elizabeth

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Project Sneak Peek

Want to see a little peek of what we have been up to over the past few days! Join us next week as we post updates on decorating my daughter's room, our $5 goodwill chairs, and a winter wreath to carry you thru the rest of Winter!! And if we have time this weekend hope to get started on my daughter's dress up armoire!!

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