DIY shabby chic/rustic white dining chair

Like the Pottery Barn look and want to recreate that distressed wood, rustic, white, shabby chic look yourself - DIY - it so easy to do just use any old wooden dining chair you already have or a second hand one and save yourself money for shoes. 

It is so hard to buy a decent solid wood chair for under $150 - so nothing made me happier than picking up a couple of ladder back wooden chairs waiting out by the side of the road during council collection week in Sydney ;)

Get the shabby chic look

What you need:

• Old wooden dining chair
• Matt indoor/furniture (or ceiling paint)
• Paint brush
• Paint scraper (you can find basic ones for this at the dollar store)
• Sandpaper
• Staple gun
• Upholstery fabric
• Foam (if the foam base of the chair needs replacing)
• Screwdriver to detach/re-attach foam base of chair

Tired old wooden dining chair

Sand and apply two coats of white paint

• Detach the foam base and sand the chair well.
• Paint the chair with two coats of matt white paint (I actually used left over ceiling paint - which was great because it has a chalky texture). Leave it for a few days or even better - a week, so the paint completely dries and adheres well.
• Use a paint scraper to remove parts of the paint together with sandpaper around the edges to create the look you are after.
• Replace the foam if necessary, luckily the foam on the chair I picked up was still quite good.
• Cover the foam base with your fabric of choice, upholstery fabric is best because it is quite thick. Stretch and staple with a staple gun.
• Re-attach the foam base to the chair.

DIY shabby chic chair & fiddle leaf 
fig plant*

For those of you who are interested, the plant in the picture is a fiddle leaf fig tree (my new obsession) purchased from Flower Power in Mascot, Sydney and the basket style rattan plant pot is the Ragkorn from Ikea.