DIY Ahh-tempt: Ombre Chair

I don't know how many of you are on Pinterest, I'm addicted, but I am always finding fun DIY projects and inspirational photos of things I want to make. Once such thing was this post fon Design Sponge originally from The Divine Minimalist by Jesse.

Jesse's beautiful creation.

Talk about a cool and simple project idea. Simple in concept at least. After the jump is the full process I went through. Overall I'd rate this DIY a 3 on a 1 to 5 scale of difficulty with 5 being pretty hard. I'm fairly confident that anyone could do this project. Between the sanding and dry time, it does take willpower to finish the project without rushing just to get to the end product. If you have a day off from work or you're having a lazy day, enjoy the sunshine in between stages of the sanding, painting and drying.

I thought I'd attempt this ombre chair, since I couldn't paint my desk, why not paint the chair for it instead? My first my problem was that I didn't actually have a chair yet...and there was no yard sales in my future. Low and behold my local Savers had a nice selection of wood chairs. Unfortunately most of them were part of dinning room set and even though they were priced to sell individually, I felt strange purchasing one that belonged in a set cause I would be the dick person who made it a three piece set now. Just when I thought I was out of luck, I saw one lone chair that appeared to not be out of a set. YAY! It was slightly smaller than the dinning room chair sets, which meant it would fit perfectly with my desk without me having to worry about not being able to push it in. I do highly suggest that you measure the height opening for your desk before going to look to purchase a chair for it, unlike what I did. I tend to luck out in situations like this, but I shall admit that sometimes it does backfire on me.

Now onto the ombre!



SUPPLIES I used:

Sandpaper 60 grit
Clean rag
Time: 15-45 mins


Spray paint [3 colors that gradient into each other]
Tarp or old sheet
Small sawhorse, box or an old chair
Time: 30 mins to 3 hours



I should state off the bat that the chair I bought from Savers, although a great buy at only $4.99! It did have a few flaws that needed to be attended to before painting could occur.

The spindles underneath the chair to the back had come unglued, a reason I'm guessing the chairs might have been donated. This was nothing a little wood glue couldn't fix. Unfortunately, I had no wood glue in my house that was younger than four years old. My father suggested I use gorilla glue. It worked great (so far I should say) it's been 5 days since it's been re glued together and nothing has shifted. In the picture, you can see that I didn't use C clamps to hold the legs together, but instead rope and a stick. It's such an easy thing to do too! Simply tie on end of your rope to one leg and wrap it around the other leg in a figure eight formation and back to the first leg. It'll look like an infinity sigh if you did it correctly. Once that is done take a stick, chop stick, long paintbrush or wielding rod (yes that's what I used) and place in the cris-cross the roped make. From there tilt the stick on a diagonal and wind it around the rope, so that rope become taut. Once the rope is tight enough, straighten out the stick so that is vertical and rest the bottom of the stick against the spindle you are gluing back in, in my case. I allowed it to dry for 24 hours.

I wish that had been the only thing that had to be fixed  Sadly there were two others, a crack in the seat I had to fill with gorilla glue and then sand down. And lastly, a piece of the front of the seat had broken off leaving the chair uneven. A handsaw, my dad, and few cuts later, the seat was once again flush. Now onto the sanding...

One of the stray cats we take care of, couldn't help but get in the photo.

I recommend a 60 grit sandpaper as the 15 minutes of sanding with 100 grit proved, 60 grit works MUCH faster. I estimate that if I had continued to sand with the 100 grit it would have taken 45 minutes. Thankfully, the 60 grit took almost half that time and I had some help. My father helped sand half of it while I sand the other. I highly suggest sanding with a partner, to not only making the process go by faster and save your arms, but to pass the time with conversation. Much better than 45 minutes of sanding in silence by yourself with extremely tired arms.

Depending on the previously life of your chair, you may have several layers of paint to get through. It turned I had two to sand away in order to achieve an overall smooth surface.

A few recommendations when it comes to the sanding phase.
1. Wear old clothes, as silly as it sounds, you will get covered in paint particles. No need to ruin nice clothes.
2. Use protective gear. Gloves, eye goggles, and face mask. The sandpaper will rub away skin inevitably. The particles will get into the air, no need to ingest or get it in your eye. And although I, myself, did not use protective gear, I do wish I had wore gloves.
3. Don't sand in the later afternoon, unless you live in a warm climate or plan on painting the next day. Here in New England, the weather is only starting to get nice, so I ran out of sunlight and warm temperatures by the time I finished sanding.


I followed her idea for how to go about painting the chair, however I did change it up a little. Seeing as my room is a sky blue, I didn't want to paint my chair white-blue-navy. Purple was a much better option for me, obviously feel free to do whatever colors you want. You could even do light purple-dark purple-black, using no white. You could even do yellow-yellow green-green, if you wanted the gradient feel, but are not a fan of ombre.

I didn't have a box big enough or a small sawhorse, I did however had an old, broken lawn chair. Using the broken chair to prop up the wood chair, I turned it up side down to paint the underneath of the chair first. I wasn't sure if I'd end up getting the light purple onto the white so I thought it might be safer to paint it this way, allowing myself the ability to cover any accidental spray with the white.

Depending on how many layers you have to use to cover, the weather, or your ability to get sidetracked, make sure all of the underneath is dry before you move onto painting the next part. I painted just the very bottom of the legs, since upside down they are easier to access, careful not to paint over the light purple yet.

Once the bottom is completely dry, turn the chair right side up and break out the white. Paint a little more than what you want white, white and allow it time to dry. Move onto the seat of the chair and spindles. I found this the most frustrating part. It was tricky to get a nice even coat on the spindles and end up with the light purple taking over most of the white. Not a huge lose to me as I prefer color to white. While I waited for the light purple of the seat to dry, I painted the top of the legs dark purple to blend it into the light purple. I'm not very good at creating the misting color affect that she did when she made her ombre chair, but I love my chair, painting imperfections and all.

Yes, I used my rain boot as a tarp weight.

Suggestions during painting.
1. Make sure all 3 spray paints are all gloss or matte/satin. I almost left Walmart with 2 gloss and a matte, not the look I wanted.
2. Both purple spray paints are Krylon brand, the white was Walmart $0.96 brand. Don't skimp on the paint. My finger hurt so bad after painting with the white, I almost couldn't finish painting with the purple. Krylon, was easy to spray and the nozzle could be turned to spray different directions.
3. Make sure you put weights on your tarp or old sheet, to keep the wind from blowing it up on you at random times.
4. Most importantly, do not stress if you accidentally spray too heavy and get a drip. Wipe it with a rag and just repaint over it. Or you could do what I did and accept the painting imperfection as a character part of my chair.

And here's the finished product.