Cast Iron Dining Set Makeover
Good friends look out for each other, right? Especially when it comes to free stuff.
For my friend, Kate, I keep an eye out for Chicken coops - or structures with chicken coop potential - like this roadside treasure:
And Kate is always on the lookout for furniture for me. Much to Big D’s (my husband’s) chagrin. And she can be persistent! Recently, she tagged me in a free furniture Facebook post, alerting me to this vintage Woodard Chantilly Rose cast iron outdoor dining set - FOR FREE!
I love that woman, but she gets me in trouble. I asked Big D if I could get it - mostly because I needed his truck to haul it home. Mind you, at that point we had three (yes, three) storage units full of - well, mostly my project pieces. So like any reasonable person would, he responded, “Uh - no.”
A week later Kate texts me that it’s still there. Now, (a) I cannot believe it! and (b) Bid D is out of town. You can guess what happens next…
Two trips later in my tiny (but super-fun!) 2-door Jeep, it’s mine. I try my best to hide the dining set on the side of the house - maybe Big D won’t notice…? (No - he notices everything. But he loves me and wants me to be happy, so it’ll be ok).
Well, Big D gets home a few days later, spies the set right away (of course), and he’s not very happy. So I sing him a song I made up from the old Nestea iced tea commercial. You remember - the teateatea-tea-tea-tea song? (Maybe you don’t - it is from the 1970s.) So I sing about how this set was freefreefree-free-free-free. And my singing, and the jingle and the freeness wear him down. And, well, it’s already here at the house, so there’s that...
Some Technical Stuff
An aside - do you know the difference between cast iron and wrought iron? I wondered myself - are they the same thing? Turns out, the main difference can be found in the name. Cast iron is made via casting - the metal is melted and poured into a mold. Wrought iron is made by heating up the metal and then hammering, bending and shaping it. Based on those definitions and the rose detail on this dining set, I’m guessing it’s a combo of the two.
So on to the makeover!
I’ve included a few affiliate links so you can find the products I used.
Tools & Supplies
Scrub Brush & Bucket
Cordless Pressure Washer (Similar)
Wooster Metal Brush
Medium-Grit Sponge Sandpaper
Steel Wool
X-Gear Camping Gazebo
Rust-Oleum Spray Paint - Blossom White Satin
Rust-Oleum Spray Paint Can Comfort Grip
Arrow Staple Lifter
Needle-Nosed Pliers
Rustoleum Flat Protective Enamel - White
Floral Outdoor Fabric - Joann
Iron
Loctite Spray Adhesive
1” Project Foam
Electric Knife
Power Shot Stapler
5/16” Staples
First, I take the seats off. They’re actually not attached to the chair base - I think so that the cushions can be brought inside during rain, snow, etc.
And I remove the fabric from the seat with my Arrow Staple Lifter. This little tool is not only perfect for removing tough staples, I also use it to remove nails. It works great. So good, I think I need to get a second one as a back-up, so I’m never without it.
The padding underneath is in about as bad shape as the fabric, so I decide to keep the wood base and replace the rest. I start by cleaning the bases with TSP and a scrub brush, and rinse with clean water. We (finally) had a string of nice weather here in the Midwest, so I put the wood bases out to dry in the sun, then gave both sides a coat of spray paint to seal, protect and freshen them up.
Now, I LOVE the bright teal color of these chairs - it’s happy and fun and initially I really wanted to keep that color and paint the table to match. (I’m curious why the previous owner didn’t paint the table - did they run out of paint and just give up?) BUT - I’m a stickler for making sure that a fabric pattern doesn’t ‘fight with’ the overall design or style of a piece.
It’s pretty hard to find bright teal rose fabric patterns - without spending a fortune or ending up with something garish. And I wondered if I would be limiting my potential customer base by sticking with such a bold color. Also, Joann Fabric was having a 50% off sale on outdoor fabric, and all of the designs that matched the teal, would have clashed with those cast iron roses. So, in the end, I went with Rustoleum Blossom White paint and this floral fabric. Actually, I think the combination is pretty and kinda GrandMillennial.
Chair Cushions Makeover
First - I iron the fabric, because I don’t want to be fighting creases when stretching the fabric over the seat bases. I recently destroyed our iron that we’d had for a very long time (stay tuned for that fiasco in an upcoming post) because it worked so well, so I really didn’t want anything else. But, of course, they’re no longer available (story of my life with products I like). I researched the best irons online, and settled on this one. It’s highly-rated and has a retractable cord, which is a must for me. I’ve been using it for a while, and am very happy with its performance.
Then I grabbed some 1” project foam for the seat cushion. I also had 2” foam on hand, as well, but that was just too puffy for these seats. Happily, when I rolled it out, it was the perfect amount for all 4 chair seats! I sprayed some Loctite Spray Adhesive on the wood seat bases, gave it a little time to get tacky, and pressed the seat backs onto the foam to adhere.
Then I used my handy electric carving knife to trim the foam to fit each seat. You can find these electric carving knives at thrift stores - they’re perfect for cutting cushions! They’re awesome for the job - cuts like buttah!!
Usually, I’ll add some batting in between the foam and the new fabric when I’m reupholstering, but the original chair pads didn’t include it, so I left it out (cost savings). I cut my fabric about 2” larger than the seat bases and stapled it on using my Power Shot Stapler and made sure that the 5/16” Staples I was using were short enough not to poke out the back of the wood (and into someone’s tush!)
Cast Iron Makeover
With the cushions finished, it was time to get outside and sweat! The cast iron part of the dining set was in relatively good shape - very little rust for its age. Turned out - the lack of rust was probably due to the layers and layers of paint applied to the set over the years! Under that teal blue paint I found pink, then gray then white! Some areas had chipped through all of the paint layers, and I knew I needed to make the surface as even as possible - with the tools I had - so the refinished dining set had a smooth new finish.
This meant scraping and sanding - a LOT of sanding.
I started with a wire brush, since that’s what had been recommended in some tutorials for refinishing cast iron. I wasn’t satisfied with the results of this method, and decided to use medium-grit foam-backed sandpaper from my SurfPrep. It wrapped around all the details of the chairs and into the crevices nicely and sanded smooth.
I’d planned to rinse off the sanding dust with my handy cordless pressure washer.
While getting ready to spray down the chairs, I noticed this zero-degree setting on the nozzle, and gave it a try. It was like a laser! It blasted off loose paint like a sandblaster! Here’s a picture of it in action:
That thing is awesome! I’d gotten it to clean off a previous outdoor patio set and it worked like a charm! Since then, we’ve used it to power-blast the leaves out of our gutters, wash our cars and clean off the patio. One battery charge lasts for hours! Unfortunately, the company stopped making this unit, so I’ve linked a similar, well-reviewed unit here.
Once the set was dry, I re-sanded the newly-stripped areas smooth, and it was time for paint!
Since I’d already chosen an outdoor fabric in a primarily-red floral pattern, I went with the traditional white for the cast iron frame. Lately, it’s been difficult to find spray paint in adequate supply at the home stores! Since Blain’s was having a sale, and had ample supply of a color called “Blossom White,” the decision was made! I don’t know about you, but my hand wears out quickly from pressing that little spray paint button for a long time - and this was a 5-piece dining set! So I clamped on my favorite Rust-Oleum Spray Paint Can Comfort Grip. This little add-on really saves me from hand fatigue!
Spray painting outdoors is the best option if the weather is complying, and we were in the middle of a beautiful Spring day - which meant trees and flowers and grass and bugs blossoming everywhere. Which usually means all kinds of debris in my paint job. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked away from newly-painted surfaces and come back to find all manner of bugs and buds stuck in my fresh paint.
A spray booth would be a great solution to the problem, but they’re pricey and permanent, and I won’t be working on any projects outdoors in a Midwest winter, so I only need a structure for about 4 or 5 months out of the year. So instead I got myself this X-Gear Camping Gazebo.
It’s large enough for my biggest pieces, provides ventilation while painting, and keeps out most everything that might drop or wander onto my paint job. I was even able to store the complete dining set in it - sheltered from the weather - until I was ready to put it on the market. It’s a great alternative to a pant booth!
The Big Reveal
Four coats of paint later - here’s the big reveal!
So pretty and refined now!
I love the way the fabric complements the rose design in the cast iron.
It really is an elegant set.
And what a transformation!
This gorgeous vintage cast iron dining set has found a new home all the way out in Minnesota.
Thanks, Kate! 😊😜
And Now - Frustrations, Flubs and Fails!
Thankfully, this makeover went pretty smoothly. The only real issue (frustration) was that, after a couple of coats of spray paint, the finish on one chair felt a little rough and ‘chalky’ in a few places. I searched online, and the possible causes could be (a) the spray paint can was held too far from the piece, causing the paint to dry before hitting the surface, (b) it was too hot out, or (c) both. This was easily fixed by a light sanding and additional coat of paint for a smooth finish.
Did I mention that the X-Gear Camping Gazebo was a game-changer for keeping bugs and things out of my freshly-applied paint job? I was feeling really secure about this solution until one morning when I was inside of the gazebo painting and kept hearing a strange ‘thud thud’ hitting the roof. I looked up to see that I was zipped inside with the most gigantic, juicy, crazed moth!
I won’t go into details on how that ended…
Along those lines, I forgot to mention bird poop…
This happened while I was staging and photographing the set for this post.
…so back into the gazebo it went!
Thanks for spending your time with me!
Catch ya on the flip side!
Victoria