Dining Set Makeover

So, here's the dining set before:

We got it on Craigslist for a steal, but it was not the style I wanted, so I decided to give it a makeover.  I started with the chairs.  I used my handy dandy handheld sander and took the finish off the seats:

Here's a sanded one next to a still stained one:

I timed the process, and it was about 10 minutes on the nose to completely sand a chair seat.  Not too bad of a time commitment, for such a drastic change.

Once the seats were sanded, I lightly sanded the legs and backs of the chair.  Lightly meaning I just ran quickly over it with my palm sander so that the paint was roughed up just a touch.  Don't spend more than a minute on it, because it's unnecessary to do more than just a once over.  I covered the seats completely with paper and Frog Tape to protect them during the next several steps.  I used my kids' construction paper, because it's what was handy.

Next, I used spray primer to cover the black parts of the chair.  I loved using Rustoleum's Painter's Touch 2X's Ultra Cover primer in flat white.  I didn't worry about completely covering any traces of black.  I just did a light coat so that the paint would have something to stick to.

I let that dry for an hour or so, and then I went at it with my spray paint color.  I used Krylon's Catalina Mist.  And I'll tell you two things.  1) I LOVE the color. 2) It is not great quality spray paint.  It runs easily and doesn't provide great coverage.  Rustoleum knocks it out of the park with coverage and non-runniness.  Krylon, not so much.  So, it took a lot of really light coats to get it all covered, and I ended up averaging an entire can of spray paint per chair.  So, although I do love the color, I'd say if you can find a color you love in a Rustoleum can, I'd definitely vote you go for that one instead.  The Catalina mist was also ridiculously hard to find (and then find again when I ran out part way through the project).  So, for what it's worth.  Great color.  Not great quality.  I was warned by lots of reviewers on Amazon and other sites, but I wanted the color badly enough that I was willing to put up with the poor quality.  I won't be doing that again, though.  Not worth it in my book.

When everything was all dry, I removed the paper and tape off the seats and gave it 3 coats of polyacrylic, which I found here and love.

So, that's the chairs.  The table was a very similar story.  I detached the legs, carried everything out to my workshop (a.k.a. the garage where I should really be parking my car), and went to town.  I sanded the top down, then I covered the entire top with paper and tape and spray primed the base and legs with the Rustoleum primer, followed by several coats of Rustoleum spray paint in white.

Again, I cannot state emphatically enough how awesome Rustoleum covers and goes on compared to Krylon.  And, no, Rustoleum has no clue who I am and I'm not getting paid to say that.  It's just true.  After the paint dried, I removed the paper and did 4 or 5 coats of polyacrylic over the natural wood top.

After everything dried, I brought it all back in, reassembled it, and let it cure for a week while we went on a planned vacation.  We came back to a fully functional and much brighter dining set.

Any questions?  Put them in the comments and I'll do my best to answer them!