Dining Chairs With Old Sign Stencils

Somewhere between the stomach flu and my current head cold, I decided to get rid of a couple 20 something year old chairs.

And then I decided to keep them.

The chairs were an experiment with painting over fabric 3 years ago that worked really well mostly because the fabric was nice and tight and the chairs are well made.

The two dining wing chairs were part of a matching set with four all fabric side chairs.

Those fabric mates left the house once my dining room was no longer of the cranberry persuasion.

But unlike the dining room in many homes, as my kids aged it has actually become highly used for more than just homework.

The man of the house likes to sit in those wing chairs when he comes home from work dusty and dirty, and if I keep these old 20 something chairs, neither he or I have to worry about spilled coffee or if he leaves a little sheetrock dust behind.

The fabric has a slightly raised pattern that after it was painted gave the look like canvas of an oil painting.  You know, because I'm such a Rembrandt.

The pattern also makes an excellent background for a vintage distressed old look.

Like I said, I wanted to get rid of these chairs so I started checking out replacement possibilities online.

To get an idea of what chairs were available I looked on all the big furniture websites.

I looking on craigslist.

I found chairs I liked, but I wasn't in the mood to spend upwards of $300 each on chairs I would need to monitor for coffee splatters, or chairs that already came with their own coffee splatters.

The dining room has become used more as it aged, and I've become more cheap as I have.

Besides, I didn't want to deny my husband his after work relaxation in the chairs he has been relaxing in, cup of coffee in hand, for the past 20 something years.

Pre letter sanding

So as I sat on the couch blowing my nose and debating whether the stomach flu or a head cold is worse, I looked at the blank slate that was the backs of the chairs.

I decided maybe I could give them just one more make over that would jazz them up enough to end my quest - at least for now - for new chairs.

And I did.

I laid out every stencil I have from the line of Old Sign Stencils that Donna at Funky Junk Interiors has created.

I fetched my jar of darn near empty Fusion Mineral Paint in Chocolate Brown, and with a box of tissue close by I sneezed and coughed my way through the random placement of stencils to embellish my old chairs.

No two sides are exactly the same, and the only consistent thing I did was use the Route 66 Stencil on all four wings, but I worried not one second if the placement was the same.

When all the painting was done I took some steel wool and sanded all the lettering down.

If you have followed the Bliss Ranch blog for a while you know that often when I make something I include some sort of memory that is special to me.

When the oldest was about 3 years old he referred to going grocery shopping as going to the "groceries house".  We still say that.  Guess he figured it was accurate, that's where all the edibles lived.

So on the bottom of one chair I included 'grocery house' followed with 4 - 14, his birthday.

The backs of the six side chairs all have my six kids birth dates incorporated into them.

The subway lettered style on the wing chairs were just the punch the table needed.

As I was typing up this post, I sort of felt like I should have started out with "it was a dark and dreary day..." because it was, but I ended up liking the drama the dark day created in the photos of the chairs.

I could either retake the photos with some mid day sunshine and do some pretty staging, or blow my nose and take some Tylenol.

Tylenol wins by a nose.

Links to all that chair jazz:

Cottage Side Chairs with vintage sack style HERE

Original wingbacks before & after/pre-paint CHAIRS post

Click the links below for products used:

To get your own Funky Junk >>>>> OLD SIGN STENCILS

FUSION MINERAL PAINT <<<< my paint of choice