Friday, July 13, 2012

The Rebirth of Some Vintage Metal Lawn Chairs

A couple of weeks ago my mom sent me this picture and asked if I wanted two old chairs.
I mean, did she really need to ask?  The answer is always YES!
I was so excited to get my hands on them.

These chairs belonged to my late grandmother and have definitely seen better days.  There was at least 3 different colors of paint on them and not to mention all of the rust.  I decided not to bother with stripping them because there was so much paint, it would be too messy and I'm too impatient.  When I finally got them to my house, I scrubbed them like crazy with soapy water.  When they were dry, I primed them with Professional Rustoleum primer but I could still see every crack and chip in the nasty paint underneath.  So I broke out the sander and sanded the crap out of them.  And, using a razor blade, scraped a lot of the peeling paint off.  And sanded again.  

Then I decided that Zinsser primer (one of my VERY favorites) might help even out the uneven surface.  It's also a rust inhibitor and can be applied to metal so it was perfect.  I literally applied 5 or 6 coats of Zinsser to the seat and back of the chair.  It helped immensely to smooth out the surface.  The arms and legs of the chairs weren't so uneven, so I only used 1 coat of Zinsser there.

After spending forever painting coat after coat of Zinsser, I sanded one last time, applied another coat of Professional Rustoleum primer, spray painted the legs white, and the rest apple red.
(Hello another 10 coats of paint!)


And here they are now!


You can see here the seat back is still a little uneven, but it's a HUGE improvement from what I started with and it's definitely more smooth after using the Zinsser primer.  I think they are going to hold up well and I love how they look on our front porch!

4 comments:

Megan McFadden! said...

I always get really excited when I see that you are doing a before and after project post!! Nice chairs!

Kara said...

I am totally impressed! Nice job!

Rhae said...

Did you spray or brush on the zinsser & red paint?

Kourtney said...

Oops sorry I brushed on the zinsser and used spray for the rustoleum primer and red top coat