Painted Dining Chairs & Dining Table Orientation Options

My dining chairs are finally painted and ready for new fabric. As I shared yesterday, these took way more work than I had anticipated, but I think the effort was well worth it. And while I thought they looked so much better yesterday going from the really dark original finish to the white primer, I’m always reminded just how blah and almost dirty white that primer looks compared to the crisp white of the painted finish. It’s so satisfying to see the paint go on after all of that prep work.

I can’t believe it, but I forgot to take a good close-up picture of the chairs when I bought them, but here’s what they looked like after I stripped the fabric off and started sanding them.

They look so much different now, and so much more my style in their new white painted finish.

I still have to order two of the three fabrics that will go on these chairs. I have the floral/bird fabric that will go on the backs, but I’m still working on the striped fabric that will go on the seats and the solid dark pink fabric that will go on the front of the chair backs. Thankfully, once I order the fabric, it just takes a few days to arrive, and I have plenty of other projects I can work on in the meantime.

I also tried out a different orientation for the table and chairs. Here’s how I’ve had them in all of the pictures so far…

But I also tried them so that the chairs are on the diagonal. I really like this orientation because it gives the chairs more space to pull away from the table. I also find it more interesting and less predictable.

The one thing I don’t like with this orientation is the center line of the table where the leaf goes would have to be on the diagonal. Once I find something to go in the center of the table, that will probably be hidden from sight enough for me. But right now, with the whole tabletop in full sight, that diagonal like kind of makes my eyes twitch. I wish I didn’t have such an obsessive need for symmetry, but I do.

Obviously, I haven’t had time yet to sew the draperies for the room yet because I’ve been working on other projects, but I wanted to see the drapery fabric with the green table and newly painted chairs. I think this is going to be so pretty.

So that’s the progress as we head into the weekend. I’m not sure what I want to work on this weekend, but of course, I’m really anxious to start on the landscape painting that will go over the buffet. I noticed that Michael’s has their canvases on sale right now. So at the very least, I’m going to head there today and pick up a large 48″ x 60″ canvas. So we’ll see what I feel inspired to work on. I may work on the landscape, or I might start on the draperies. I also need to get a dimmer switch installed for the chandelier because those bulbs are way too bright!

UPDATE: I’ve had several people ask when I plan to refinish the floors, and if I should go ahead and refinish the floor in the breakfast room since the room is still unfinished. I’m going to wait on the floors. They will eventually all be the light, natural color that we have in our bedroom suite.

But I’m not ready to tackle that project right now. I really want to do all of the floors at the same time, so that will include the entryway/living room, music room, kitchen, dining room, and pantry. It will be a huge job, and I only want to rent the sanders once and do them all at the same time.

Right now, I’m focused on getting the dining room and storage room finished, and then I hope to have some time left over this year to get a few more things finished outside (like getting some plants in the ground) before winter weather hits central Texas. I have less than two months to get those things done, so there’s simply no time for refinishing floors. That will have to wait until next year.