LIFE AS A HUMAN

New Life For An Old Chair

By Shannon Grissom | Sunday, February 3, 2013 at 7:00 am | 3 Comments

Everybody is cutting costs these days. And I was especially ruthless with my budget this year. But when it came time to paying my membership dues for the Hollister Downtown Association, I was happy to write the check. These folks are a tremendous force in our community. They do more than revitalize downtown, they revitalize the entire town!

Each year, the Hollister Downtown Association or HDA as we call it here, hosts a Charming Chairs Event to benefit the association. Members of the community decorate a chair and then we auction them off at the Open Studio Preview Exhibit.

This year I found my chair at the Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital Thrift Shop for $8.00. Funds raised from the thrift shop go back to the hospital to raise funds for hospital equipment, refurbishment of patient areas and scholarships for medically related studies. Now that’ s just cool!

I was looking for an “interesting” chair, and one with an easy surface to decorate. This one fit the bill.

Thrift Shop Chair

First thing I did was scrub the chair with soap and water . (It had a good varnish on it ,so the water did not hurt the wood.) Then I gave it a couple of base coats of black Krylon Fusion paint. It’s made to adhere to almost anything and no sanding is required!

Base Coat and New Leather Seat Cover

I didn’t notice that the seat needed to be recovered until I washed the vinyl. Fortunately, I found a scrap piece of leather in my fabric remnant drawer that was just big enough to recover cover the seat.

Recover Seat with Leather

I only had one weekend to decorate this chair so I opted not to hand paint the decorations this year.

Instead, I photocopied a royalty free Art Nouveau drawing that I downloaded from the internet, and decoupaged it on the front and back of the chair.

Decoupaged Back

Next I aged the finish with a wash of burnt sienna acrylic. And added metallic puff paint accents. I know, I know, I just had to add a bit of paint somewhere!

Apply Sienna Acrylic

I let it dry overnight and then applied a coat of spray varnish.

This was a really fun project and it feels great that I can help both the Hollister Downtown Association and Hazel Hawkins Hospital by recycling this discarded item.