That was the case with these two flea market chairs that were long on durability but short on appeal. View the results after their makeover: http://www.mindspring.com/~billgoodman/c... .
These chairs (total cost: $4) are made of heavy, solid wood. But they had been abandoned and neglected so that the finish was soiled. Some paint and a couple of cushions seemed like a good rescue.
First, the chairs needed cleaning, just with some diluted bleach water. With chairs of this type, you may not need to prime the wood before painting, but if your chairs still have a lot of the glossy finish on them, you may need to sand with a medium grit sandpaper and then prime. If not, just go ahead and paint.
Of course, you can paint your chairs whatever color you want or whatever color you are inspired to use. In my case, I had one small piece of dark blue fabric with small stars on it. I decided to use that fabric to cover one of the cushions, so I developed my paint scheme around that. Use your imagination in choosing your colors. We'll get back to the cushions in a moment. First, the paint.
These chairs are incredibly heavy, so I decided to try to paint them to look like stone and take advantage of their weight. First, I painted the chairs with a dark blue, semi-gloss latex enamel. You could use a variety of paints, from flat to semi-gloss, your choice.
When the blue paint was dry, I then mixed some creamy white paint (leftover semi-gloss) with water, roughly two-thirds paint to one-third water. You could use a painting glaze as well, if you prefer. I applied that paint mixture to the chairs with a plastic shopping bag, turned inside out and crumpled up. I took just a small amount of paint on the bag, which I had crumpled small enough to fit into my hand, and applied it in a circular motion all over the chairs.
While the paint is still wet, if you feel you've applied too much, simply take a dry shopping bag and remove some of it. Continue to work in a circular motion so that you don't have any straight lines. You can also "pat" the surface, as if you were blotting up a
