I love spray paint. Especially glossy spray paint.

I have this black Bertoia side chair that I use as a desk chair. I bought it years ago from a cracked out lady at a “prop” warehouse in Los Angeles. I followed a mysterious Craigslist ad to a downtown warehouse FILLED with crap. For $30 I walked away with the chair and left the scabby, twitchy “prop” crew to sort through their stacks of junk.

Needless to say…the chair has seen better days. I decided to touch up its peeling matte black paint job with something a little sexy and glossy. And since my thrifted butterfly chair frame had also seen better days, I threw it in to get a touch up.

Here they are ready to get painted.
*Don’t make fun of my weedy dirty backyard. I know its HORRIBLE. Give me some money and I’ll fix it.

– I ran some sandpaper over the frames to knock off any bits of flaking paint or rust.
– Hosed them down to get all the dust and crap off.
– Let them air dry a bit.
– Then wiped them down with a clean towel.

You can imagine that right? I forgot to take pictures.

-Then I sprayed them with Rust-Oleum Professional High Performance Enamel in a glossy black finish.

All in all its a super duper simple DIY.

Here is the rusty bit BEFORE and the glossy bit AFTER.
I know. Super exciting.

All done. Painting something black more black isn’t really a huge AFTER reveal…they look much nicer in person than they did before.

The best option would be to have them powder coated – which is mucho $$$. Spray painting is a quick and easy DIY solution to touch up something vintage that has seen better days. Maybe if you fall in a big bag of money you could have them stripped and powder coated later.

I’ve been using a small sheepskin as a chair pad for the Bertoia chair. I need something a little more cushy as my bottom feels a bit like swiss cheese sitting on it for long hours in front of the computer. I also soaked the butterfly chair cover in bleach to try and get some of the stains out and lighten it up a bit. It worked OK, but it is still pretty torn and stained. I still dream of a brown leather sling…

For about $6 it turned out awesome.