So, whilst planning our kitchen I have been looking for some new dining chairs. I love French Tolix cafe chairs but alas budget does not stretch that far. So I switched to looking at examples of the current zeitgeist – mid-century modern. A few places are selling neon bright plywood chairs – Habitat have some really nice ones called Hester at £95 and Bloomsbury&Co are selling similar Canteen chairs for £200 a pop.

I really like this look, our kitchen is going to be the much replicated industrial style complete with old station waiting room enamel task light and metro tiles on the wall, so I was looking for something that would colour pop to add some novelty to the overall starkness of this look. However above said chairs are also out of my price range, I wondered how hard it might be to d.i.y them.

After a little hunting around online, ebaying and the like, I came across a fabulous salvage yard in Surrey that specialises in furniture and such discarded by churches. Amongst the horde they were selling old chapel chairs (I’m calling them school chairs as I’m pretty sure most schools also had them from 1960-1989) for £23 each.

The original I bought from Church Antique Furnishings:

So, after unscrewing each one I spray painted them with neon bright pastel colours (made by Cobra) and actually I’m pretty pleased with the results.             

I also nicked Habitat’s idea of painting the screws to match (this was a bit more fiddly, marigolds are essential!):                                                                                                                        
 I highly recommend Church Antique Furnishings as a place to rummage around for the odd candelabra, pew or archangel font! My personal favourite when I was there were these old French soldier panels:

If only the pennies went further….