Operation Goodwill Chairs + Dining Room Reveal
Oh man. I’m so excited to write this post. It’s been such a LONG time coming. We finally have a complete, functional, decorated dining room! It’s been such a satisfying big ticket item to complete in our 1960s fixer upper, and it’s clearly a game changer for our basic day-to-day functioning. I mean, what do you do when you’re renovating your eating area in a house that already lacked a designated eating area? Stand up and eat at the kitchen counter. Or sit cross-legged at the living room coffee table. Or even camp out on the dirty kitchen floor! That’s what!
After having had enough of that for almost 2 years, we decided to buckle down and really work on wrapping this project up. We’ve had the table we bought from Wayfair (we got the Loon Peak Guyenne Dining table) for about a month, and it’s been SO satisfying to have somewhere to gather. It’s also helping our toddlers adjust to this thing called table manners and finally experience nightly meals together as a family. All in all, good stuff.
Some of you who follow along on Instagram may also remember that once I had a table picked out, I was then on the hunt for chairs. I shopped around (and I’m talking HOURS of online browsing), and the cheapest options I could find for sets of 6-8 chairs came to $60 a piece. At that price point, we were looking at a $400+ plunge for a set. We knew this was a necessary purchase, but I still wanted to see if I could find a cheaper solution.
I had the thought of going to some of my local Goodwills, since I usually look at second hand furniture options whenever I can, but I also know finding a cheap but quality set of this kind of thing is hard to come by. But I thought “why not just look at Goodwill? I know it’s a long shot that they’ll have 6 chairs in a style I like, but…” And guess what I found at the first shop I checked?? SIX of these beat-up but perfectly styled Napoleon chairs for $5 a piece (totaling a mere $30 wonderful dollars). I didn’t even wait to inspect them or think it over. I counted that there were six, told the associate I wanted them, and went outside to pop my trunk. Boom. Done. You can’t ignore that kind of Providence.
Of course I then had to refinish them to upgrade their color and condition, which took some turns in terms of how I wanted to approach them. Strip and stain them entirely to match the table (hard to do)? Paint them from head to toe (easiest option)? Since I tend to like natural wood furniture over painted furniture, I really wanted to find a way to make staining them work. Stripping the turned legs was going to prove too time consuming and labor intensive for this (now) 8 months pregnant momma, so I compromised with myself and decided on a two-tone look. That way I could still have some of that warm wood I like so much, and yet still be able to complete the project in a timely manner.
I mostly used my orbital sander to get the bulk of the original finish off and then sanded the legs by hand. The seat and the back needed the cleanest possible raw finish to absorb the stain, but the legs just needed enough tooth the grip the paint. I also used my husband’s dremel with the triangular sanding attachment to get some hard to reach spots. All in all, this project made me appreciate power tools, and having the right ones for the job, all the more!
To match the table (which was tricky, let me tell you), I decided to try my hand at mixing stain colors. I could see that the table had gold undertones beneath its ashy browns, which was hard to find in just one stain color, so I decided to layer two: Varathane Golden Oak underneath Minwax Jacobean. It definitely worked and gave the chairs enough dimension and depth to match the table *almost* perfectly. The chairs are still a bit more orange in hue than the table, but the match is so close, I just love it.
I also tried using chalk style paint for the first time, and decided to do the legs and back straps in Magnolia Home’s Chalk Style paint in Blackboard. It’s more of a pricey paint item than I’m used to working with, but even latex paint in a flat finish was showing too many brush strokes and imperfections for me. This option worked perfectly, giving the chairs great coverage and a subtly aged and rustic texture. I would definitely work with this brand of paint again! Just one caveat: I know chalk paint is supposedly ideal because it’s a no-prep paint, but I still had to almost strip the legs to get the best adhesion. I didn’t go too crazy, but I definitely sanded them as well as I could to give the paint maximum grip – otherwise I found it could lift back off the wood during the sealing process. (I sealed the chairs completely with my handy Minwax Polycrylic in a matte finish for minimum shine).
Voila! I love the timeless character of Napoleon style chairs, and I was even looking at a few similar ones from Target before I found these beauties. And now that these Goodwill finds have been lovingly refinished and repurposed, I love them even more. Funny how much you appreciate and enjoy the things you invest in.
And just so you can enjoy the transformation, this is what the formal living room (now our dining room) USED to look like. Go pink or go home, am I right??
Quite a difference, right? Overall, we opened one doorway and widened the other, installed ceiling lights, added crown molding and board and batten, and changed the paint color a million times (I’m indecisive)! It took time, but I’m just so glad we repurposed this space and were able to carve out a roomy, designated dining room in this oddly laid out Cape Cod. It was worth the work and wait! There are still some other design elements I’d like to add in the near future (wood ceiling beams and a faux fireplace under the mirror, for example), but we’ll get there soon enough. For now, we have somewhere to eat as a family, and for that I am endlessly grateful.
