From Free to Fab

By now I'm sure that most of you know how I obsess on things - home things, fashion things, all things. Well, one day I was driving to work and I saw a pair of chairs in a garbage pick up pile on someone's curb - obvious they didn't want them any more. I kept driving and stopped about a mile up the road and turned around, something about the detail on the chairs just caught my eye. 

They were a mess, dirty and covered in spider webs, and left out side for what seemed like forever.

SO I dusted off the webs and put them in the back on my car and contented on my way to work. 

As soon as I had the chance I hosed them off and let them dry in the sun. You can see from the closer up they were pretty beat up. Once they were full dry I used the vacuum to get out all the dust and degree from inside the cane on front and back of the chairs. That was a challenge and I may or may not have included picking some out with a skewer. I slightly sanded them down and filled in a few places with wood filler.

Oh, I should also mention that I kept them a secret from my husband for the duration of the project. He knew I was working on something but just not sure what. I had such a vision for them and I knew if he saw them in their "hot mess" state he would have that forever in his mind :) 

Once they were totally dry I went to the hard ware store and picked up some spray paint. LOTS of spray paint. 

I wanted to do a dark grey at first but I couldn't find a shade dark enough so decided that a high gloss black would work as well! [Sorry for the horrible glare - painting at sunset]

I patiently waited a whole day between each coat which I never do because I wanted them to look amazing! After about three or four coats they looked perfect. 

That's when I got a little crazy- to add a pop of color I taped off and painted the bottom six inches of the front two legs hot pink. Yep, hot pink. 

After two coats and another day of drying they were ready for their high gloss poly top coat! 

Don't you LOVE the difference!?

I moved them into our house, made a black velour seat cushion for each, and a faux sheepskin pillow to modern them up!

 I also wrapped a turquoise floss about an inch thick above the pink to tie them in with the turquoise rug that is in our family room. :)

I still love the detailing on each of the legs. What do you think - worth picking up off the side of the road!?