After a long, cold winter, it’s nice to emerge from hibernation and do some gardening, clean-up the yard, and pull the outdoor furniture out of the shed. Many years ago (when Ames was still in business), we picked up a discounted outdoor furniture set with 4 tall stool-height chairs, a glass table with umbrella, and two regular chairs. After many years of use, they are starting to look tired, worn, and rusty in some spots. What to do? Rather than cast them aside for something new, we decided to refurbish them with a couple of cans of spray paint.
The arms of the chairs are loosing their color, and there are some rust spots on most of the furniture.
Before painting outdoor furniture, use steel wool to remove the rust spots.
Gently rough up the entire surface with steel wool to help the spray paint adhere to the metal. Next, wipe down the chair with a damp rag to remove any surface dirt.
These chairs have fabric seats, so I cover the fabric in newspaper and tape off the edges with masking tape.
To protect the lawn, the chairs are placed on top of an old tarp for painting.
Time to paint! Be sure to choose a high-quality outdoor spray paint and primer for long-lasting coverage.
We decided to update our furniture with a new color. To make sure that the old color was completely covered, we applied two coats of paint.
What a difference the spray paint made! Our outdoor furniture looks like new!
Prepping the surface and taping off the fabric was time consuming, but well worth the effort.
Two chairs to go, and we’ll have a complete set of refurbished outdoor furniture.
I am a Freelance Graphic Designer full of creative interests! In my spare time, I love to create something new from something old, embark on home decorating and renovation projects, try out new recipes, and attempt to garden. Beyond the artistic pursuits, I have a love for music and enjoy playing the piano and handbells.
How did you get the legs of the table? We have a very similar set, same materials (the mesh and metal, glass table..) and we finished spraying our chairs and went to move to the table and realized the legs are glued to the glass? we can’t get to the part that shows through the glass! Wondering how you guys did yours 🙂
Hi Amanda, thanks for checking out our article! We were able to unscrew the legs from each other. Once they were detached, we were able to slide them apart and take them off of the table glass. Ours were not glued, or if they were at one time they weren’t any longer! (Our set is probably about 14 years old). I hope you’re able to find a solution. Please let us know how your project turns out.
Hi! I am doing this project next week, but I don’t know how to replace the mesh part of the chair. Do you know how can I change/ replace the mesh in those chairs? Can I by the replacement somewhere?
Thanks !
Hi Tamara,
Good luck with your project! We did not replace the fabric on our chairs. Check out your local fabric store–if they don’t have it in stock they may be able to special order it for you.
I just saw a tutorial for fabric paint. That is what I plan to use on the mesh part of my chairs. It’s called Simply Spray.