Buffalo Check Black Chairs

Who else likes a good before and after? After painting and refinishing so many pieces of furniture over the years, it still amazes me the difference a little paint can make to a piece. These buffalo check black chairs are no exception to that.

Here are a couple of chairs that I found recently. Like a lot (most) of the pieces that I work on, the finish was old and worn. The fabric on the seat…. well, you probably wouldn’t have wanted to sit on it. It was old and dirty and came with free bird droppings.

Here are the steps I took when painting these black buffalo check chairs:

I start by sanding the old finish. Now I know with chalk paint, lot’s of people say you don’t need to sand. But, I say that it doesn’t hurt. When I sanded these chairs, I didn’t take the old finish all the way off. It was just a light scuffing to give the new paint something to stick to.

Then I washed them down. After, this you can apply your paint of choice. I used this paint by Rustoleum. It’s not a fancy chalk paint, but honestly, it’s a good paint. It’s a bit thin, but that ensures that you don’t get a thick gloppy finish, which I like. When painting chairs, I usually start with the legs. You have to make sure you look at them from all angles to ensure you don’t miss any spots. Some people like to turn them upside down to paint the legs, but I don’t usually bother. If you will be painting a whole set of chairs, it might be a good idea to rig up a lazy susan to spin them around on. If you are using chalk paint, you’ll want to add a topcoat such as wax or polyurethane.

Then I replaced the fabric. I stapled on some quilt batting to give a little extra cushion too. This type of seat is fairly easy to recover. You basically just wrap the seat like a present and staple it at the back. If you’ve never done it before, I don’t recommend starting with buffalo check fabric. It took a little extra work making sure everything was all straight!

And here they are all prettied up.

The black paint makes them look so spiffy and I love the buffalo check!

Luke’s almost 5 and it’s hard to get a picture of him these days without a silly face 🙂

I have two similarly styled chairs that I painted red at Christmas to use at my table. Wouldn’t these look nice paired with them? But I am thinking that I will probably be selling them. Some girls collect shoes… I may or may not collect chairs 🙂

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