Before and After: Louis style dining chairs

Remember the Louis style dining chairs I got on Craig's List? Well they've been sitting around my house in a constant state of half-done-ness for the last 7 months. But no longer!! They are done and I love them! (sorry about the terrible before pics, they're all I have!)

I started off thinking I would do this whole project myself - remove old upholstery, paint AND reupholster. But as things dragged on and on I had to just admit to myself that if I was ever going to get this project done, I needed to outsource the re-upholstery piece to professionals. Just removing the old upholstery proved to be a bear of a task. I have a whole new respect for upholsterers. It is NOT easy work.

In this post, I shared the early steps - sanding, priming and picking a paint color. Ultimately I settled on Benjamin Moore's Sea Pearl, a pretty off white that was a nice match for the white faux ostrich leather I was using. But after spending an entire afternoon painting 1 chair (and battling drips on the chair's turned legs the entire time), I took a step back and realized I was painting this chair almost the exact same color as Rustoleum's Heirloom White. I had a few cans on hand (doesn't everyone?) and 20 minutes later I had this (the 4th chair is just out of this shot).

I am SOOOOO HAPPY I turned to spray paint and abandoned the brush on this project. The result is a perfect, smooth, even finish. I did 3 coats and sealed it all with some spray Minwax polycrylic in satin.

Off they went to the upholsterer's with 4 yards of the faux ostrich and 3/4 of a yard of Schumacher's Chiangmai Dragon (which by the way I got on eBay and was so afraid it wouldn't be enough for the back of the chairs...but it was!!) I had them do double cording all around and I love the way it turned out.

I totally love the clean look and the amazing durability of this fabric. They weren't home for 30 minutes when Knox put them to the test by sneezing a mouthful of pureed blueberries all over one of them. A quick wipe down with a wet cloth was all it took and they were back to sparkly white.

They're sort of like mullet chairs - business in the front but party in the back. :)

I think if I had had more of the Chiangmai Dragon fabric, I would have specified exactly what scenes in the fabric I'd want framed on each chair. But with 3/4 of a yard, you get what you get. I'm still ok with it though. I got some flowers, some dragon, some lanterns...

Originally, we were planning to use these in our dining room. Our breakfast nook was our little coffee shop corner with 2 comfy arm chairs. (terrible iPhone pic...sorry)

But with Knox now in a high chair, we needed to swap out the coffee shop corner for an actual breakfast nook outfitted with a table. In came the Odyssey table from CB2.



So now they live in our breakfast nook.

Need to get rid of that rug asap. Also my Maskros is ridiculously off center and there's nothing I can do about it. But I will focus on my fun chairs and not my off center light.

Here is the cost breakdown for this project:

Chairs: $50 per chair on the Raleigh Craig's List
4 cans of Rustoleum Heirloom White Spray Paint: $30
2 cans of Minwax Polycrylic Spray: $20
4 yards of white faux ostrich leather: $135
3/4 of a yard of Chiangmai Dragon on eBay: $90
Reupholstery Services: $75 per chair from ABZ Uphholstery