You know those people who see a chair on the side of the road, or a table next to a dumpster and snatch it up to take home and put to good use? I’m a modern version of that. I love going on Craigslist and seeing what’s listed under the “free” section. Even if I don’t get anything, it’s fun to look at something that someone sees as garbage and think of all the cool things I could do with it.

Several months ago, I came across an ad I knew I had to respond to. A woman was giving away three beautifully shaped chairs from the 1970s. What?? I immediately emailed her. They were still available and later that week I was meeting her at her church to pick them up. She seemed surprised that I was so excited about them, but said she was glad they were going to a home where they would be used.

The only thing was…they were a terrible, ugly tan with copper legs.

Photo quality courtesy of my “smart” phone

My first thought was to paint the legs silver and then paint the chairs another color. I’ve read that if you use special spray paint made for cars, you can actually just paint vinyl. So I brought them out to my deck and all of a sudden just went crazy with the paint. I was left with tin man chairs. Whoops.

They sat like that for weeks, actually, because I wasn’t sure what to do with them. I considered just getting rid of them, but then thought I’d at least try to recover the seats and then see if I like them. Bingo! I found some awesome fabric and got to work. Thirty easy minutes later and I was left with fun new chairs!

I threw one of my grandma’s (Angie!!) vintage pillows on each and called it a day.

So for the cost of spray paint and fabric, I have two brand new chairs. The third one? Yeah…that’s still waiting in my kitchen. I’ll get to it, don’t you worry.
What fun vintage/thrift makeovers have you done? 

Sharing with It’s Overflowing, Think Pink Sundays, Thrifty 101