Stool Remodel

February 16, 2011

Stool Remodel

Lately, I have had the winter blahs. And Zac was out of town last week all week and I needed a project to work on. Looking around my house, everything is so black and white... I needed some COLOR!

Zac and I have had these awesome bar stools ever since we moved into our home in Farmington. They were second hand and though they are functinoally awesome, after four kids and six years, they were lookin' a little rough.

I had some close-up shots of the legs and you can see the paint, food, and crud that have been engrained into them, but my computer is REFUSING to cooperate today, so I am going to have to take what I can get. But anywho, you can tell that they are beat up, old, and kind of boring.

I love this vase. I love the green-ness of it and the antiquated crackled look. It set the "green" theme for my kitchen and I wanted the bar stools to match.

I got some a vinyl decall for each stool from my sister Rachael (thanks!) and applied it to each stool before I painted and here is the end result, though I still need to lacquer and shine this baby up!

Here are the steps I took in case you are interested:

1) Clean the stools thoroughly.

2) I applied several coats of paint stripper, rather than sanding down the stools (I am lazy!)

3) After drying the stools, I applied my vinyl decals firmly to the top of each stool. If I would have been smarter, I would have measured and marked the exact center. Some of the decalls are a little off from each other, but I love the imperfection of it all anyways.

4) I spray painted a base (or primer) coat of black. It didn't exatly adhere everywhere, BUT, I didn't want it completely black anyways, because I wanted some of the wood grain to come through when I beat up the stool.

6) I painted a coat of Asparagus green, but let some of the black bleed through.

7) After the paint was very dry, I sanded random pieces of the stool, sanding down to the wood.

8) I got a heavy chain and beat the trash out of the stools.

9) When everything is very dry, I removed the vinyl decals.

10) Lacquer everything!