Painting the Dining Room Chairs

This project started with my existing dining room furniture that I intend to keep. I am not a yellow person and didn’t care for the original antiqued gold finish of several decades ago that was beginning to show its age.

1 clean previously painted chair:

The next step was to coat everything in a rust brown primer. I opted for cans of spray primer as it isn’t as thick as what I would have put on by hand and I didn’t want to clog up the caning. Besides, it doesn’t take nearly as long to do and is completely dry in a matter of minutes. I put down a couple of sheets of craft paper (available at Lowe’s or HD quite cheap) to protect the patio.

1 rust brown chair coming up:

Next, 1 thick coat of Palladian Blue.

I used Benjamin Moore interior oil/alkyd in the lowest luster they had available. Wonderful stuff-goes on nice and smooth and makes a nice firm first coat. It’s smooth and silky when its dry and a wet rag and a fingernail aren’t going to scratch it back off. I do love my oils.

Palladian Blue.

For the caning, thinned down version of the blue was recommended. So, I thinned it down with mineral spirits and splashed it on. Next step-wipe the excess off….with my hands! What fun!

Next was to wipe off more from the area where a person might touch the back while sitting. Now where is that exactly??? So off to do some research. I pulled out a chair and sat down. My back hit the chair across the back where the bulk of one’s shoulders would go but not down along the bottom where the small of one’s back would be. Okay, I’m 5’2”. Where would a NORMAL person’s back hit? So I moved the spot up the chair a little higher and took off more excess there so that a good deal of the rusty brown primer would show through.

I went around the table considering the height of different people that might sit there and did larger, wider, smaller, and a few very light “bald places” on the remaining chairs to give some the look of heavy use and some of light. The arm chairs have one that definitely looks like the man’s “head of the table” chair and the other, a women’s delicate usage. Can we say obsessive-compulsive?

Next day…Thinned down Prescott Green applied with a cheap bristle brush to leave streaks of blue showing through.

I have to admit, I got carried away with the green. I put the Prescott in one pan and put some thinned down Clearsrping Green (that will be used later) in another pan and swirled in a tiny bit of Weathered Oak that I had in the basement. On the tray of the Prescott, I pulled up some of the color, dipped the tip of the brush in the modified Clearspring then into the Prescott, dabbed it a little so that both were mixed on the brush then started painting the streaks in the chair. Then I brushed them out so they were fairly straight and not real dark allowing the blue to show through the streaks. That was too cool.

Then there was the random brushing of the green onto the caning-lightly so as not to run into the crevices.

Next step was to apply the Clearspring Green to the detailing on the legs, skirt, and beading around the cane and make a trellis on the front and back of the caning itself. What was I thinking again??? For the detailing, I used a flat, 3/8” artists brush with nice soft bristles. Trellis runs should be between 1 ½”-2” apart and no more than ¼” or so wide.

I used what was left of the modified Clearspring from the night before which I had covered and refrigerated. You can hold oil-based paints for a little while if kept covered and chilled, but only a day or two. Latex holds significantly longer-like months.

I did the trellis first since I didn’t want to stick my hand in wet paint at the edges. I thinned it down some and started at the top of the chair in the middle so that the pattern could come out balanced on each side and I wouldn’t end up with something weird in the middle. 5 runs of cane came out to exactly the measurement I needed, so I just used the back of the chair itself as a guide. I’m pretty good with straight lines, so I freehanded the whole thing although poking pencils in the cane and using a straight edge as a guide would work great for an unsteady hand if anyone is interested in trying this.

The idea was to make the trellis barely noticeable, so when I got done painting them on, I took a rag and ragged off the excess. In the bald spots, I ragged off even more so that it’s almost not there at all. On the back, I lightly ragged as there would be no wear back there and it would still be quite noticeable.

Okay, so that part’s done. Now that’s REALLY cool!

On to the next step. The dusty look. So, what color is dust anyway? It was suggested that I not make it look like it had spent time in a septic tank, so I was a little afraid of this part as everything struck me as the septic tank look!  Looks like I’d have to do some research and to determine the color of dust.  Turns out it's kind of purple.

Down to the basement I went to get the $2 can of oops paint that the paint store had accidentally mixed instead of the Deer Path I needed for another project. I knew I could use that color somewhere! So, I poured into yet another pan some of this beautiful lavender, mixed in some murky mineral spirits from the jar the brushes were in, added a dab of the Prescott-polluted Clearspring from the trim pan to gray it up some, then swirled in some Weathered Oak. Perfect color of driveway dust-and look! no septic tank!

Instructions were to apply the dust color then wipe it all off, leaving it in the beading and crevices of the caning. I slathered it all over the caning and the back first, then took a blue shop cloth from the roll, added a tiny bit of mineral spirits to the center and worked it in so it wouldn’t remove everything, then started wiping. It doesn’t take long to get the rag full of paint residue, so it’s pretty easy to keep using the same one so you don’t take off so much that you’re back down to the stark paint again.

One finished chair.  Now if only I could find the perfect upholstery fabric!

This is a project I started a couple of years ago, long before I ever even heard of Trenton, TN.  Last winter, I finally got all the pieces completed. 

Dining Room

North Wall

South Wall

East Wall

Fireplace on West Wall

Day 1

Before the wreckage:

Something was fishy with this wall as it had a fairly noticable dip in the center that extended out into the room several feet.   The wall had been sheetrocked by the previous owner to make a smooth, usable wall for their purposes.

Freeing the door that had been drywalled over and discovering old wallpaper on the plaster. 

Finally the root of the problem begins to become apparent.  The only thing holding up the wall to the second floor are the door frame and the exterior wood siding.  All of the studs had rotted through and there was nothing but airspace and cobwebs between what remained of the studs and the sill.  I knew there was going to be something ugly behind the wall! 

Dining room in progress or is it the Old World look?

The Plan

Wallpaper, border, drapery and upholstery fabrics, rug, furniture color, and Constance-my little assistant

South Wall Chronology