How to Paint Dining Room Chairs
In my previous blog post, I shared the process refinishing our dining room table which had come with Windsor style chairs. I didn’t love those chairs and they were not the most stable for toddlers. Happily, I found some peach painted wooden chairs FREE on the side of the road. I am sure these were on their way to the dump. And shamefully, my family sat on them in their previous state for a few months before I finally overcame my intimidation of using a paint sprayer for the first time. If you have never used a paint sprayer before, this blog post is for you! It is actually quite easy and very fun! Now I want to paint spray everything!
Using a Paint Sprayer
If you are planning to paint your dining room chairs and considering painting your chairs by hand, I want to suggest you reconsider. A paint sprayer is the way to go!
Before this project, I had never used a paint sprayer. I have tried painting chairs by hand with a brush before, it is annoying getting around all the spindles and ends up looking streaky. It can still be done this way but I was much happier with the result of the paint sprayer. The finish is so smooth and natural looking—it does not look like they were painted.
For this project, I used the Wagner Flexio 4000 with the Detail Nozzle Attachment. Wagner does not make this same model anymore but this is the current Wagner Paint Sprayer which works similarly. When adding paint to the paint sprayer, first you need to thin the paint by 10%, so if you are using 16 oz of paint, add just a bit over 3 tablespoons of thinner. For acrylic based and latex paint the thinner you would use is water. If it is an oil based paint you will need to use mineral spirits. Mix the paint and thinner until smooth and blended. My paint sprayer came with cup liners. This was AWESOME. It kept my paint cup clean and made clean up easy peasy.
I wanted my chairs to be BLACK BLACK. Not gray at all. Hoping for the best, I chose Benjamin Moore Interior Satin, 792 4X Base 4. This was their standard black paint. And it was perfect.
Getting Started
First, clean the chairs down really well. Just a sponge or scrub brush, soap and water should be all you need. I brought them outside to rinse them with the hose and let them dry in the sun.
If your chairs have never been painted before or have a glossy protective coat on them, you will want to roughly sand the chairs down with 180-220 Grit Sandpaper.
Next, set up an area to spray them. I set up plastic sheeting with thumbtacks on our fence.
When spraying your chairs, do the bottom of the chairs first. To get the most even coat, move your entire arm when spraying, not flexing your wrist and always keep the paint sprayer moving while the paint is spraying. Let them dry for a bit, the time will vary based on the humidity and paint you are using but you will be able to see the paint is dry and ready to flip and paint again.
Flip them over. Do it again.
And again. I did three coats on my chairs spread throughout the entire day.
After this, I let them cure for 24 hours.
The last step is to put a protective coat on them. Do not skip this step. Use this Wipe-on Poly or this wipe on Beeswax. I did not go with wax because I prefer to clean my house with my homemade vinegar cleaner and over time vinegar can cut away at wax coating.
And finally, my dining room table and chairs project was complete!!!
