Homespun Redone Antiques: What to do with extra dining chairs

When my husband and I got married we each brought several things to the relationship. Since each of us had been previously married, there were lots of household items and furnishings to sort through and decide whether to keep, sell, or throw away. My husband had a set of 4 dining chairs with no dining table. We didn’t have a place for them, so we tried to sell them on an online yardsale site. When we didn’t have any takers, I took that as a sign to work a little repurposing magic.

The first thing I did was remove the seats, and sand down the chairs. They were painted black, but had been in out shed and gotten several layers of pink paint overspray on them from an earlier project.

Once I had sanded off all the paint, I decided to join 2 chairs together to make a bench. As I worked, I developed a plan. I’d make 2 benches out of the 4 chairs. One for my husband (to be seen in a future post), the other for my husband’s brother and his wife. A very deserving couple that does so much for everyone else, so I thought it could be mine and my husband’s way of saying thank you and we love you.

Next I spray painted the, now bench, black. Yes, I know they were black before I sanded them, but I hadn’t decided to do this as a gift before I started sanding and black or charcoal gray are my brother-in-law’s favorite colors. So, as I said I spray painted them black.

Then I added several coats of polyurethane just in case they wanted to use the bench outdoors.

Finally, I had my husband cut a board for the seat (that way he could say he helped build the bench), then covered it with the fabric my husband and I had chosen for the bench. I thought it turned out great! Now to see what the in-laws thought….