Our first refurbishing project

We bought this cute little table and chair set off of Craigslist the day we moved to Portland.  It's served us well, but it is by no means a quality set of furniture.  Specifically, I think the finish on it was one of those stain-and-sealant-in-one types, because wow did it ever chip and scratch easily.  

It was in DIRE need of a new paint job.

Check it out.

Chairs, before

We started out by lightly sanding.  This was a giant pain in the butt, even though our end goal was just to rough up the surface, not remove the old finish.  I can't imagine if we'd had to get down to the bare wood.  

Kraig: "Take lots of pictures of me doing work"

I did a little research online and found that we could just buy a bonding primer that would not require us to sand first.  Winner!

We promptly stopped sanding and made a trip to Home Depot to stock up on supplies.

I'm slightly embarrassed to show you this next photo.  Here is the table before we primed.... 

Scratched, burned by the iron (thanks Kraig!), ruined by moisture.  What a piece of work.

 I think you'll agree that it needed help, and fast.

Kraig did the painting because it was spray paint (hello toxins!)  

Primed and ready for paint!

It took a lot more primer and paint than we thought.  Another trip to Home Depot to pick up (a lot) more paint, and we were set.

Here's a chair after a few coats of yellow paint.

Beautiful!

I planned to distress each piece, so here is another photo pre-distressing.  I love the detail at the top of the chair.

Owen loved "helping paint" (i.e. he could run around outside while there was no painting going on, then we were relegated into the house. 

Meanwhile, I got to work on the upholstery.  We loved the contrast between the cream-colored seats and dark wood in the original piece, but clearly the near-white cushions showed the marks of a toddler....

So we bought a beautiful blue and white print to re-cover them.  We also purchased a can of stain repellant.  Live and learn!

I worked on distressing the chairs once I was finished with the seats.  I love, love, love how it turned out!

They weren't finished yet, though.  Don't let me fool you!  That chair is not sealed and that seat is not screwed on :)  

So I got to work on sealing the table and chairs once they were all adequately distressed.  (It was a no-odor varnish and I applied it outdoors.  Safety first!)

I had a little "helper" for this part.  Thanks, Bear!  Also, do you like our spray-painted lawn?

I'll post with the products we used and more detail about our methods along with a finished product photo soon :-)  Overall it was a very fun project!