This post and photos may contain Amazon or other affiliate links. If you purchase something through any link I may receive a small commission at no extra charge to you.
I must admit that I have a thing for chairs. I don’t know where it began or when it started but it’s gotten to be bad. I’ve already done one chair makeover here recently and now I’m sharing another. But, whoa now, there’s yet another coming in about two weeks. I’m just crazy for chairs!
One chair I’m nuts about is my office chair. I’ve sworn that I’d never EVER get rid of it. But here lately it’s giving me a bit of trouble in the butt department because the padding has squished down until it’s just no good. And I was going to fix it up but I got a “Why?” Since I spend so much time in my office chair everyone wanted me to get a new, good quality chair to replace this one. And I refused. Flat freaking out.
Until I saw this little gem at a thrift store in my sister’s town. I asked her to ask what the price was and she came back with $3. SOLD! So everyone’s dreams have come true. I have a new office chair. Perhaps it’s not exactly what anyone meant but they can cram it.
To make over a fabulous chair like mine you will need:
- the chair – comb flea markets, garage sales and used office goods shops
- vinyl spray paint
- rusty metal primer
- gold spray paint
- tape
- new nuts, and washers, etc (optional)
Yeah, so here’s that before picture. The bones are there. The style is great and the cushion feels like it’s never really been used at all. There’s a bit of rust on the frame but that can be dealt with. Oh, and the base is cast iron. Yep, this chair is heavy as all get out.
Now I cleaned this thing and cleaned it and I kept finding twigs and all sorts of totally random junk. It may look clean, but give it a good one just to be sure.
First things first, you’ll need to remove the base from the chair. Be sure to hang on to your nuts and washers and whatnot or you’ll be buying all new ones like I had to. Nice!
Here’s a close up of that rust. Try to get after it with some fine sandpaper and see if that makes it go away. In my case it smoothed out perfectly and save a few spots removed all of the defects meaning I didn’t really need to paint it. But I had my heart set on gold legs so…
Remove the wheels and prime that sucker with metal primer or rusty metal primer. Allow to dry and then hit it with your spray paint of choice. I waffled between gold and purple but gold spray paint always wins, baby.
Tape off your wheels and spray them to match. FYI – I totally don’t understand the way chairs work and my paint is peeling away because I painted the part that rolls on the floor. Ah, well. Pay attention and you may not have this problem!
Next I spray painted the chair with special vinyl spray paint. This spray paint is actually used for vehicle upholstery so it’s good stuff. For about $7 a can you really can’t complain, either. Now since my chair was so OLIVE I thought that I needed a color that was similar for decent coverage and I purchased a tan color though I really had wanted to paint it white. And when it was done, I hated it. It looked like a seat for a car or a boat. So I wasted another $7 and went with my gut and painted this guy white.
But check that baby out! So worth it! And check out that super fab shape. I’m sure I could find something similar new but I don’t even want to think about how much something similar but brand spanking new one would have cost me!
To be honest my office isn’t exactly the greatest place to display the fabulosity that this chair is but the cats dig it.
And my butt’s happy with the re-introduction of cushioning so we’re all winners. What do you think of my new, swinging office chair makeover?
