Boho shabby dining set

This was a major makeover for this set!

The furniture from the 60's was often made with resin. I have painted many pieces made of that resin material (plastic). I love it because it was so detailed. This whole dining set was made of a mixture of wood and resin. The table was even mostly resin. It is all very paintable though and you just have to make sure you prep well. You can read about prepping furniture here.

After a really good cleaning of everything, I applied 2 coats of shellac. I knew I was going to distress the chairs so I did not want to use a white primer. I used shellac so that I could still distress. I was not sure if I wanted the table top distressed or not so I went ahead and applied shellac to that also. When pieces are made of resin or melamine and or are glossy, you have to apply shellac or an oil primer so that the paint will adhere.

Once the shellac dried I painted away. The white I used was AS pure white. When using pure white you have to be prepared to use 4-5 coats. It just takes more coats to cover compared to a dark color.

In between coats I did lightly sand to smooth out the brush marks on the table top. For the top I sealed with AS clear wax, 2 coats. You want to make sure you let that sit and cure for 30 days.

For the chairs, I wanted a light turquoise so I mixed some paint samples from Behr with BBFrosch chalk powder. It is so economical to buy those little sample pots and make your own paint. I like doing that when I want to come up with a color that I can't find in a ready-made chalk paint. The middle area of the chairs (the resin) got the turquoise paint. You can see in the photos below how bright the paint was before glazing it. Oh, glaze is so amazing. Look how it transforms. It is just magic!

After applying 2 coats of the paint I distressed everything. And then I applied one coat of a water based sealer and then when that dried I started putting on the glaze. When doing a glaze you want to have a dry cloth on hand and a damp cloth and work between them both. It takes practice to get good at glazing. You can see in the photos though what a difference glaze makes! You do want one coat of some type of an acrylic sealer between your paint and the glaze. The glaze I used was from Rustoleum. It was the java brown. I use that one often.

The final coat is the sealer and I used Modern Masters dead flat varnish on the chairs.

The fabric on the chairs is a serape blanket that I cut up to fit to size.

I hope you give glazing a try!