I am so excited to be sharing this project with all of you.  Most of the time when I pick up a piece of furniture to refinish I have no clue what I am going to do with them.  That was the case for three oak bar stools that I picked up the same day I bought my vintage chair and the buffet that would become our woodland themed dresser.  I was so excited to have more stools for our kitchen bar.  And then I got them home only to find out that they were too short GAH!  I forged on and decided to go ahead and refinish them after I fell in love with these cool vintage industrial style bar stools at Target.

My original plan had been to number them 1 , 2 , 3.  I worked up a design on Adobe Illustrator and showed my best friend Mrs. G.  She fell in love too and since they were the perfect height for her kitchen bar asked if she could get them from me when I was done.  Once I knew who was going to be the owner of them I my mind started churning again and I consulted my best bloggy friend Rachel at Thrifty Inspirations.  What if instead of doing 1, 2, 3 I did something more custom, something very personal, like say an anniversary date?  Rachel loved the idea and we both are keeping our fingers crossed that Mrs. G does too!

Before I do the reveal I want to teach you how to do this yourself!

Step 1:  Prep your surfaces!  (You are going to want to sand, sand, sand, and then sand some more till you have your surface ready for paint and stain!  Seriously make sure you are completely done sanding your bar stools…).

Step 2:  Tape off the top of the bar stools with paper and paint the base!  (After you spend all the time sanding you don’t want to ruin it by accidentally getting paint on it!)  I had to go back and do some sanding because I did not do enough in Step 1 and ended up sanding some of the paint on the bar stools legs … Booo!

Step 3:  Create your design, cut it out, and apply transfer tape!  (You can use any kind of stencil cutter.  We have a large Roland GX-24 it’s a big daddy!).

Step 4:  Apply stencil to the top of the bar stools.  (Tape just off set of the middle, remove paper backing, rub smooth with a squeegee.  Remove paper from other side squeegee, and CAREFULLY remove transfer tape).

Step 5: PAINT (be careful to stay within the constraints of your stencil or you will be sanding your bar stools again), Remove the Stencil and let the paint cure for at least 24 hours.

Step 6:  STAIN!!!  (I used Minwax Gel Stain – Walnut so it would stick to the vertical surfaces of the bar stools without dripping off.  This stuff worked wonders!)  Paint the stain on wait 3 minutes and Wipe off.  It’s that easy!!

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How awesome do these bar stools look?!?!
Step 7: POLY!  Wait the specified amount of time listed on your stain and then apply a few coats of Polycrylic.  Since your fanny is going to be sitting here a lot you want to make sure it stands up!)
Though this is a multi step process the hardest part by far was painting the base of bar stools.  Even with spray paint it took 4 cans to cover all 3 bar stools!  YESH thats a lot of spray paint, but it was all well worth it!  As soon as I can find a set that is tall enough for our kitchen bar we will have our own set!