Vintage Chair Makeover - Painting by the Penny

Updated on October 16, 2023

It’s been a bit since I’ve refinished a piece of furniture. The last piece I’ve shared on here has been a Sideboard Makeover. Even though I have been busy with other projects, working on and transforming furniture is always so rewarding! I couldn’t resist when I found a pair of vintage chairs on Facebook Marketplace for $15 bucks. Here’s what I did for this vintage chair makeover.

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This is what the chairs looked like before.

Disassemble

I decided to take the chairs apart in order to work on the rusty metal and reupholster the seats separately. Luckily, although a little rusty, all the screws were still in pretty good shape. I saved them all in a ziplock bag and got started.

Remove Rust

I purchased course steel wool to remove most of the rust from the metal. My local Home Depot only had grit #1 but I recommend an even more course wool like grit #3. For the smaller rusty areas I used aluminum foil. That’s right! Did you know that aluminum foil can get rid of rust too?!

Here’s a good before and after using aluminum foil to get rid of the rust. The noise is not very pleasant, it’s like nails on a chalkboard, but it works so well!

Clean

Once I got rid of all the rust I could, I then cleaned it with Bar Keepers Friend. I love using this product for cleaning hardware whenever I’m refinishing furniture. It works so well!

I vacuumed the seats and cleaned them with Woolite Carpet and Upholstery.

Spray Paint

Now for the fun part of this vintage chair makeover!

Although I was able to remove a lot of the rust, there was still some that would not come off. The metal chrome could not be saved, so I decided to spray paint it. I sprayed it with Behr Premium spray paint in the color antique brass.

I applied a total of two coats and was pretty impressed with the adhesion and coverage. While that dried, I worked on the seats.

Reupholster

The fabric on the seats were in pretty bad condition so I decided to cover it with a fun pattern. I purchased two and a half yards of this duck cloth fabric (Adelaide Bloom) at Hobby Lobby, which cost me around $25.

I have never reupholstered and was pretty nervous to do it. While keeping the fabric that was already there and that I had cleaned, I just covered it with new fabric. I found it easier to do it this way.

The underlining utility fabric that was underneath one of the chairs was in pretty bad condition so I removed and place a new one over the other chair. The utility fabric cost $3 for one yard which was plenty for both chairs.