Because I like to repurpose whatever I can, I now know how to paint metal chairs. I recently became the proud owner of some fantastic outdoor vintage metal chairs…..okay maybe not so fantastic. They did have a nice design but they were old….very very old! In fact, my husband found two of them abandoned in the woods and the other one in a heap in a metal scrap yard. Not exactly my idea of appealing outdoor furniture, even for a rustic patio!
The good news is that they were sturdy…..probably because two of them had about eighteen million coats of paint on them!
For some baffling reason, I decided that I would tackle the job of trying to restore these babies into their former glory.
I started out very motivated and fully expected that I would get them to look brand spanking new…….
Keep in mind that these chairs were full of old paint layers not to mention quite a bit of rust.
Here is a look at them:
Yawza! That wire brush setting in the middle chair is one of the brushes that I had to use in step one for preparing the chairs to paint. Let me run you through the step by step process.
How To Paint Metal Chairs:
1. Clean chairs and scrape/sand off all loose paint and rust. I used a wire brush with a scraper at one end and also a good coarse sanding block for this step. After scraping for a long time….too long….I decided that my plan for having chairs that looked like brand new was going out the window. These chairs were too heavily coated with paint. I did get all of the loose paint and loose rust off but you could see indentations where some paint areas were thicker than others. I could have used a paint stripper but for these chairs it wasn’t worth the effort. Instead, I made a change in the type of finish paint I decided to use. At first, I was going to switch from a glossy yellow to a textured hammered steel color. However, when I went to the hardware store, I found a different textured metallic paint that actually matched our cabin siding. The texture of the paint helped to hide some of the imperfections that were left very nicely!
2. After I scraped and sanded, I applied a rusty metal primer by Rustoleum to the chairs first. This was to give them a nice paintable surface over the rusted areas. The primer is a flat black.
3. Once the primer was dry, I applied several light coats of my finish paint, which was the textured metallic.
4. To protect the paint and completely weatherproof the finish, I finished off the process by spraying a couple of coats of clear gloss lacquer by Rustoleum on the chairs.
They went out on our back patio for now, which is the next project to be worked on! I plan on adding some decorative pillows and a table and who knows what else I might find for that back area! I know one thing……there won’t be any more old chairs!
Here’s a little look at the before and after:
I was wondering if you left them that gray color? I can’t find any more pictures. We are in the process of redoing 4 chairs and a double glider and we are sanding and priming before we paint.
Yes, the primer was the flat black and the finish color was the metallic gray.
What was the brand / color of the textured metallic you used? These look awesome and what I have been searching for! Thanks!
I love these old chairs..I am looking for a some. I just had a tornado tar up my farm on June 24th so right now I am getting ready to rebuild but I will be looking for some of these chairs to put in my yard and I would like to put a could buy my barn when it’s fine. I love your website .. thank you for all your hints 🙂
So sorry to hear about your farm! I hope you find some chairs for your yard. Thanks for stopping by :).
Nice job! As the owner of some old chairs similar to these, they are some of the most comfortable chairs on our front porch. One of these days I may strip ours again and take them over to our local car paint shop (when a special is running)to have that extra-hard paint finish applied.
They are definitely comfortable! I’m glad I went through the trouble of refinishing them :)…although a run through a car paint shop doesn’t sound too bad either!
Wow, that is so amazing!!! What a perfect transformation. I like that it was refinished and the rust and dirt are removed. I will share this information to my husband because we have three chairs that are in our stock room. This can be a good intervention for those chairs. Thanks for sharing this.
Glad you like them Joann! Good luck with your chairs and let me know how it goes.