The story of three chairs...

Bryson was more than done being in is high chair and no matter how tight the buckles were he could manage to get out of them! He would not stay sitting and was often on his tray or on the counter. He loved sitting in Hannah's booster (and the buckle seemed to keep him in better) but he could only sit there when Nic was gone... because, well... we only had 3 chairs.

We've always only had 3 chairs. Nic and I got our table and chairs as a wedding gift from my grandparents and an aunt and uncle (a gift we were very grateful for). When it was being driven down from Salt Lake (on the freeway... in the back of a pick up truck) one of the chairs flew out! Well, needless to say, we never saw that fourth chair to the set. So we've just had the three chairs. (It is always a little tricky when we have company, parties, or play groups here!)

BEFORE:
Well, to get one matching chair to our set it was going to cost about $60... for ONE chair. (I really wanted more than just one. After all it would still be tricky to have company.) I started looking for chairs on KSL classifieds, with the goal of having some fun miss-matching chairs and possibly painting them different colors. (I've always loved that style.)

Fortunately, I found a used table with eight chairs. The chairs were painted teal blue and bright yellow... two colors I really like... but not the colors of my kitchen. The table was not in as good of condition as I had hoped and would need to be refinished as well. It had lots of long, deep scratches and the legs were scraped and dinged up quite a bit. But it was a very sturdy, solid-wood, counter top height table with beautiful wide legs. I was able to talk the price down a bit and got a great table and 8 chairs for $250 (about the price of 4 chairs to my old set). I was very excited for the table... and the challenge of refinishing it!THE PROCESS:
And so the process began that very evening. Nic sanded the top completely down. The next morning I got some stain and gave the top two coats. Every day there was something to do. I sanded the chairs down roughly. Nic and I primed them. I covered the table top with plastic and painted the table legs black... then sanded edges and added some stain to antique the table. I used a spray polyurethane... which seemed alright for the legs, but after 4 coats, knew the top was going to need to be brushed on. In the meantime, the chairs needed to be sanded lightly and wiped down. Then I finally started painting my chairs. I did them three colors... yes, three! Red. A goldish yellow. And green. This was my inspiration:Everyone thought I was crazy. One neighbor came over and finally asked, "So what color are you doing these chairs? I've seen them blue, yellow, white, red, green!" She thought I kept changing my mind as to what color I wanted them. Even when there were all out, one lady saw all the colors and said, "I'm confused."

People really did think I was crazy doing three different colors... and that they were out in my driveway everyday for 2 weeks! (Some days I got them out and it was too windy to paint... so I would wait all day for the wind to die down and at the end of the day they ended up being brought back into the garage.) I told my neighbors that eventually they really would be inside of my house and that they wouldn't have to look at them in my driveway everyday! (I did get some very great compliments along the way too.)
Anyway... the chairs took about 3 coats. I sanded the edges, used a stain (should have used glaze) to antique the edges. Then painted another coat over the chairs. Lastly the chairs all got about 4 coats of spray poly, the table got 3 coats of brushed poly, and the tabled got a light sanding.

AFTER:
...Then the table finally got to come in the house! Phew! I was a bit worried it would seem too big for our space, but I am very please with how it worked out. I love the 3 colors of chairs and think the table is beautiful! (Hannah loves having all the chairs. It is like playing musical chairs at dinner time. She loves to select where everyone is sitting and it is always changing.) Now I'm ready for another refinishing project.