Updating Discounted Chairs on a Budget

Velvet Chair with Gold Accents for less than $70 a Chair!

Decorating is something I enjoy doing, and I love the challenge of decorating on a budget. I wanted to add two chairs to our living room to make the area more functional but I did not want to break the bank. There were several chairs I fell in love with online but they fell within the 300-500 dollar range. Ideally for this project I wanted to spend no more than $100 a chair. Join me on my journey for Updating Discounted Chairs on a Budget!

Living Room Space
Living Room Space

The above picture is my living room space after completing my DIY Barn Door Shutters project. While the space is functional, we needed more seating for entertaining. I recently purchased blue velvet curtains for my home office and wanted to continue with the same material in the living room. My online hunt for the perfect blue velvet chair began.

Purchasing the Perfect Chair

While I found several chairs that would fit the space perfectly, they were all sadly outside my budget. I found a blue velvet chair on Wayfair that fit within my budget called the Alivia Armchair.

Alivia Armchair-Wayfair
Alivia Armchair-Wayfair

The chair was listed on sale for $150 a chair. While this seems outside of my budget it wasn’t because I had a credit at Wayfair for $128. I obtained the Wayfair credit because I ordered an electric fireplace for my Faux Built-in Fireplace with Shiplap home renovation project from Wayfair and it came with some marks on it. Wayfair will offer to completely replace your item or provide a credit for the damage. Generally, I take the credit if it is something I can easily fix.

Initially I thought I was paying $172 for both chairs however, when the chairs arrived they both had paint damage to the black portion of the chair. Wayfair gave me $60 off my purchase price because of the paint damage. This discount brought the price of both chairs down to $112, that is $56 per chair! For this project, the paint damage was not an issue because I already had plans to repaint the chairs. The moral of this story is don’t be afraid to ask for a discount if a product arrives in a less than perfect condition.

Updating the Chairs

Rust-Oleum Metalic Gold Spray Paint
Rust-Oleum Metalic Gold Spray Paint

The chair base color needed to be redone in order for the chair to have more character and fit into my design style. I picked out a Metallic Gold spray paint made by Rust-Oleum.

I removed the chair base from the chair seat. The chair seat was easily removable and was only connected by a few screws.

Painted Chair Bases
Painted Chair Bases

Each chair base was coated with two coats of Metallic Gold Rust-Oleum paint. It took 3 cans of Metallic Gold paint for both chairs.

After the final Metallic Gold paint coat dried, I sprayed each chair base with Rust-Oleum Matte Finish Clear Protective Finish. The Clear Protective Finish helps prevent the gold paint from being scratched off.

Once everything was completely dry, I reattached the chair seats to the chair bases.

Completed Chair
Completed Chair
New Chair Set Up!
New Chair Set Up!
Extra Seating added to the Living Room!
Extra Seating added to the Living Room!
Completed Chair
Completed Chair
Velvet Chair with Gold Accents for less than $70 a Chair!
Velvet Chair with Gold Accents for less than $70 a Chair!

I played with the placement of my new fabulous chairs and finally came up with the perfect layout.

These chairs are comfortable, stylish, and best of all they did not break the bank. The total cost of BOTH chairs and all of the spray paint was $135. Think outside of the box and have fun revamping inexpensive furniture to fit your design style and needs. I can’t wait to see what you create!

Buffalo Plaid Painted Pumpkins

Buffalo Plaid Painted Pumpkin

Halloween time is here in full affect! We have been decorating our house like crazy trying to get ready for our favorite holiday. I decided to decorate my farmhouse porch with pumpkins and mums because it will be transitional staple for Fall, Halloween, and Thanksgiving! Originally, I put a mix of white, green, and orange pumpkins out on the porch of various shapes and sizes. My porch was cute but it missing something. I decided to paint the orange pumpkins and my project turned out better than I could have expected. Check out my step by step guide for these fabulous farmhouse Buffalo Plaid Painted Pumpkins!

Materials:

  • Pumpkin
  • White Paint
  • Black Paint
  • Paint Brush
  • Ribbon (optional)

*There is no down time when applying paint for this project, no need to wait for anything to dry just follow each step!

Directions:

Prepping Buffalo Plaid Painted Pumpkins
Prepping Buffalo Plaid Painted Pumpkins

Place the pumpkin of your choosing on a surface you don’t mind getting paint on, I put down some old Trader Joe’s bags to paint on.

Paint the entire pumpkin white. I had leftover paint from various projects around the house so I utilized it to make these pumpkins! If you are worried about getting paint on the stem simply cover the bottom of the stem with tape and remove after painting. I didn’t tape the stems of my pumpkins because I knew I was adding ribbons at the end of the project.

Pumpkin Painted All White
Pumpkin Painted All White

Place a good amount of white paint into a disposable plate or bowl and add a drop or two of black paint. Mix the black and white paint together until you have a beautiful gray color.

Place 8 vertical lines on the pumpkin with gray paint.

Vertical Gray Lines on Pumpkin
Vertical Gray Lines on Pumpkin
Vertical Gray Lines on Pumpkin
Vertical Gray Lines on Pumpkin

With the same gray paint, paint two horizontal lines onto the pumpkin. Place one horizontal line towards the top half of the pumpkin and one towards the bottom half. If your pumpkin is on the taller side you might need to add an extra horizontal gray line to make the pumpkin look more uniform.

Using black paint only, paint a square at each point that the horizontal and vertical gray lines meet. There should be 16 black squares on each pumpkin. Don’t worry if your lines are not perfectly straight, everything will look great in the end, I promise!

Buffalo Plaid Painted Pumpkin
Buffalo Plaid Painted Pumpkin
Buffalo Plaid Painted Pumpkin
Buffalo Plaid Painted Pumpkin

I had extra farmhouse fabric from a set of no sew curtains I recently completed (stay tuned for that tutorial). Once the pumpkins were dry, I cut the fabric into long strips and tied them into bows around the stems of each pumpkin. I placed the pumpkins onto the porch and they could not be any more perfect!

Buffalo Plaid Painted Pumpkins on the porch
Buffalo Plaid Painted Pumpkins on the porch