Furniture Makeover: Bar Stools

It will come as no surprise when I tell you that I have had these barstools for going on 10 or 11 months now. Now that I have waited the allotted amount of time, I can finally start making them over. I would like to add though, that I did start working on these, about 6 months ago - I got one seat cushion re-covered, then kind of lost interest in the project. 

But now that it's almost Christmas, and all of my family (who have never seen our home) are coming into town, I figured I should get these eyesores finished. 

Hubby and I picked these up off of Craigslist for, I want to say, $15. I think we over paid, but I made up for it by saving on the rest of the materials.

I started out trying to sand them (by hand), and that got me no where. So, I grabbed the few cans of half empty spray paint primer in the garage, and got to work trying to cover up the old chipping black paint. It took almost four cans of primer to get two of the stools completely covered. For the last one, I used Krylon Dual Paint & Primer. I am now in LOVE with all paint/primer combinations. That saved me so much time (and money)! At this point, I was asking myself why it had taken me so long to get this done.

Next up, I had to tackle re-covering the last two seat cushions. As I started prying out the old staples, I remembered why I lost interest in this project 6 months ago. I pulled out 126 staples from each cushion - oh yes, I counted. Ridiculous!

After that torture was over, I got to to put on my new pretty fabric (that I picked up at the Ballard Designs Outlet for $4!!!)

The prettiness of the finished product, makes up for the hard labor I put into it. 

As you can see, there is one barstool half painted. I'll be putting the finishing touches on tomorrow (hopefully). I ran out of gray paint, and when I went back to the store to get more, I had to deal with a screaming, flailing, tantrumy (totally not a word) two year old. Needless to say, I walked out of the store with no paint in hand, and have not had a chance to return. 

However, the other two look awesome! And with my brother getting in town tonight, I should have a chance to sneak out to the store tomorrow to pick up one more can of paint to finish. Or I'll just send him to get it for me. Either way, it will NOT be another 6 months before this barstool is finished!