I found this wonderful dining set on Craigslist. It included a gorgeous table (will show in a later post), 2 head chairs (one shown), 4 regular chairs, and a matching buffet. It was very tired and old with the chairs tattered and outdated. But boy did this set have potential! I bought the entire set for just $135! You just can’t beat that.

Well lately I’ve been getting into the shabby chic look so I knew exactly what I wanted to do with this dining set. Unfortunately since I was getting my house ready for my wedding on July 25th, I didn’t take the time to take pictures of each step because I was so busy and in a hurry with everything. But below I’ll run over the steps I took to get a diy shabby chic dining chair.

Step-By-Step Tutorial:

• Before starting anything remove the chair pad by unscrewing it from the bottom. Most chairs will probably have four screws in each corner that will be pretty obvious on the bottomside of the chair.
• Now you need to either strip off the existing finish/paint or sand it down really well. I personally chose to sand it down because of all of the details I figured that it would be more difficult and not worth it to try stripping it. If you choose to sand it down just make sure you at least get the “shine” off of it.
• Next clean and wipe down the entire chair getting off any dust from sanding, dirt from storing, etc. I cleaned and wiped down the whole chair once, let it dry, and then wiped it down again.
• Now prime the entire dining chair with a primer that has a sealer in it. If you’re going white you’ll want to get a good solid base of primer down first. I did two full coats of primer.
• After your dining chairs are primed you can start painting. Paint the entire chair the same as you did with the primer. I personally used a semi-gloss paint because it is a piece of furniture that will be touched often and needs to be easy to clean. Do as many coats as you need in order to have a solid, even coat. I did two full coats of paint in addition to the primer in the previous step.
• Finally, to seal the whole chair, cover it with a furniture wax and buff out (follow the instructions on the bottle). I used “Howard Feed-N-Wax Wood Preserver”. It is also a good idea, especially with white furniture, to use this wax on your furniture periodically to maintain the finish.
• To finish the chair off I found sale fabric at the fabric store. I actually couldn’t find enough of the same fabric so I decided to do the two head chairs one fabric and then the other four chairs in two other fabrics. I think this will give the whole set more of a shabby chic look to it.
  
  I simply cut a piece big enough for the chair seat and laid the chair seat onto the fabric (wrong side against the top of the chair seat). I then used an upholstry stapler to staple it all along the edges of the chair seat, pulling it tight along the way.
• I then screwed the chair seat back onto the chair and voila, a shabby chic dining chair! I’ve seen similar ones for for $100 or so PER CHAIR! So I think I got a pretty good deal

In an upcoming post I’ll show you how to repair the caning on the back of a chair because a couple of them had broken caning that needed to be replaced. So stay tuned for more projects from this dining set!