Dumpster-rescued chair redo and a different way to strip varnish

A few years ago, my dad rescued some office chairs from a dumpster. This solid wood beauty was one of them:

OK, so maybe “beauty” wouldn’t be the best way to describe it, but it definitely had potential.

This chair sat in our basement for a couple of years, also serving as my stepladder for painting projects. So it definitely got some added wear and tear from that. 😉

Last week, I finally got around to refinishing it. My goal was to paint it to look like the metal chairs that are so popular right now in home decor catalogs, such as this set from Ballard Designs:

 Source

Below is a short video highlighting the technique I used to create a similar metallic finish, along with details on how to strip off old, stubborn varnish and paint using the HomeRight® Digital Temperature Heat Gun.

The paint I used for this project was a combination of Warm Silver, Smoke, Pewter and Black Pearl from the Modern Masters® Metallic Paint Collection. (I applied Warm Silver first, then a combo of all of them for the final two coats, mixed together to achieve my desired finish.) I used the least amount of Smoke, so you could probably forego that color if necessary.

After a few short hours of work, I now have a modern-looking, high-quality furniture piece I can use in a variety of ways around our house.

What do you think of the finished product?

Special thanks to HomeRight for sponsoring this post, and to Modern Masters for providing the paint needed to complete this project. As always, all opinions – and sweat equity – are 100 percent mine.