I finally got around to painting our breakfast nook chairs this past week and I really can’t believe it took me so long. A part of me liked the brown stain but they had an orange look to them that I just couldn’t get past. I also thought this would be a great time to share our favorite furniture paint with you all!
First, lets talk a little about the chairs. My husband and I love vintage and antique furniture, especially chairs. We have many around around our house. Our breakfast nook just happens to be a full set. We find them mostly at thrift stores, consignment shops and antique markets. We’ve even found one or two in old buildings. What I love about older chairs is the craftsmanship and the character. It’s hard to find in a lot of chairs today. We paid under $10 for each of these particular chairs.
Here is a look at the chairs before I painted them. I know some people say never paint vintage or antique furniture. I’m not one of those people. I light both stained and painted furniture. To me it depends on the piece.
After some cleaning, sanding and paint –
I love the clean and crisp look the black color gives the room. The color is called Black Beauty by Benjamin Moore. The paint is by Valspar but if you have the color code for the color you want they can look it up for you. You’re not trapped into Valspar’s colors! I think the floors and the natural rug give the space plenty of warmth. The chairs now are a nice contrast to the white table.
On to the paint. I get asked regularly what paint I use to paint a lot of my furniture and which paint is my favorite. I have used so many different paints on furniture that I’ve lost count. Among my favorites are Annie Sloan Chalk Paint, Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint and my current favorite – Valspar’s Furniture Paint.
This is in no way a sponsored post for Valspar and I’m not a furniture painting expert by any means. I’ve just painted a lot of furniture and have narrowed it down to the one I like the best.
What I love about this paint is that the finish holds up so well. It has a nice satin look and cleans great. I even used this paint on our breakfast table. It says on the can that you don’t have to sand. If you read the back though that really only applies to bare wood or painted furniture that doesn’t have a finish on it.
I always recommend sanding your furniture first. It is one of the biggest pains and the part of the process I hate the most but it makes all the difference. No matter what paint I’m using I clean and sand the piece first. We had a similar set of kitchen chairs last year that I also painted with this paint and they held up great after a lot of heavy use.
I wont lie to you. Chairs are one of the most annoying things to paint. All those spindles and curved legs are hard to get covered. The easiest way and the only way I do it these days is with my paint sprayer. If you see any furniture painting in your future I would highly recommend the Home Right.
It only took me one coat with a very light second coat to finish these chairs. I made sure to really sand the seat of the chair, the top back bar and the bottom leg bars. These are the places that take the most abuse. You want to make sure the paint sticks. I also went over these areas with an extra spray.
You can seal the chairs if you choose to with a Polycrylic for that extra protection but I’ve never had too.
Don’t you just love those beautiful spring flowers? Trader Joe’s had these Ranunculus bouquets for under $6 and I just couldn’t resist. If you follow me on Instagram you see all of my fresh flowers in a lot of my photos. Fresh flowers are one of my favorite things to decorate with. In my opinion they’re one of God’s most creative designs. I’m so happy he created so many to choose from!
Here are just a few other furniture pieces that I’ve used the Valspar Furniture Paint on –
Our recent coffee table build
There are so many great furniture painting tips out there but I would just recommend cleaning the piece really well with a degreaser, sanding with 120 grit and then again with 400 or higher to get a smooth finish and using the right painting tools. You want a good quality paint brush and or paint sprayer. The sprayer just gives the piece a professional look and it’s a huge time saver! I really can’t say enough good things about it.
Have a great week and I’ll be back tomorrow with a little update on our laundry/powder room makeover. I hope you’ll meet me back here!
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The chairs look amazing and are a great contrast to the white table! I, too, love old chairs – so much character! Looking forward to the powder room update, too!
I couldn’t agree more, Lanita! Every antique chair I come across looks different and has a character all its own.
The chairs look fabulous. Great color.
Thank you, Marty! I’m so happy I went with this color. I had never used it before on anything so I was taking a chance. I’m really pleased with how it turned out. 🙂
i wonder who came up with that orangy brown color in the first place, i think it is way unattractive, i love how your chairs look now wow xx
I have no idea Chris but they must have had a brain relapse. I’m so glad that it’s disappearing one project at a time and thank you so much! Have a good week. 🙂
Amanda, I love your blog and Instagram page!! I just bought two of those very chairs and love them, however, the person who sold them to me painted them and the paint just comes off with my fingernail! Any suggestion? She said she used General Finishes Milk Paint and I can see brush strokes, so she used a brush!
Thank you so much, Shelly! Yikes, that sounds terrible. I would sand them as good as possible to remove the chipping paint. It will probably be very tedious but fresh paint wont stick well to the chipping stuff. Painting chairs by brush is the worst. I would look into your options as far as a paint sprayer goes, if you think you’ll use it again. 🙂
Hi Could you tell me the color of the wall paint . I am wanting to paint my wall white buy solo many whites. I like yours Thanks
The wall color is Dove White by Benjamin Moore. It’s by far one of my favorite white paint colors!
Nice job, the table and chairs look great. I just finished painting my formal dining room table and chairs and used Annie Sloan chalk paint. I distressed it all and did the waxing on them. You are so right about painting chairs…ugh, such hard work, but the results make it worth it. I have to tackle the hutch next and hope to blog about it all soon.
I couldn’t agree more, so worth it! I love Annie Sloan paint. I’m sure your table and chairs turned out beautifully! Good luck on the hutch. Hopefully that will go much quicker than the chairs & table. 😉
I have the exact same chairs. I spray painted them black about 2 years ago but some of the paint has come off (especially the chairs where my youngest kids sit). So now I am trying to figure out how to repaint, do I remove all the old paint or can I paint over some of it (it is scraping off fairly easy, I think I used a paint and primer in one spray paint)? So, you don’t need a primer under the Valspar furniture paint?
I love your chairs. I am going to attempt to paint our chairs the same color. I purchased the sprayer, did you have to dilute the paint? I am a little nervous about using the sprayer. Any suggestions?
Thanks, the chairs are perfect…to funny i just picked up two of the exact same chairs in a Thrift store yesterday and was not sure what color to go with….i leaned more towards white matt finish…but they are beautiful…one question though…my chairs are in perfect shape, no scratches no chips…you think cleaning and just painting with the Valspar would be enough? Thanks
What actual color black did you use! Thanks!
Hi Emily! The paint color was in the blog post but I used Black Beauty by Benjamin Moore. 🙂
These look amazing! I’m about to repaint my Grandma’s chairs which are very similar to these. They’ve been completely stripped after a previous painting disaster (latex enamel that never stopped being sticky after YEARS) and I’m SO nervous about getting it right this time. This time I’ll be doing black over completely stripped wood using a sprayer. I’m hoping that very thin coats plus this paint will yield much better results. I’m curious how these have held up for you with no top coat. Yours look so great that I’m finally ready to jump in and get this done!
How have these chair held up? I’m think of doing the exact same thing with the same supplies but am trying to find paint that wont chip!
For chairs, does the Valspar hold up better than chalk paint?