I spray painted upholstered chairs. Yes, really. It sounds odd — and it probably isn’t the choice of a cautious person — but when you’re desperate and determined, unconventional solutions start to look appealing.
These were Craigslist finds from last March: worn hotel chairs with stained eighties fabric, bought for about $25 each. They had good bones, just unfortunate upholstery.
I first tried painting one chair an apple green after following a tutorial, but that experiment didn’t go smoothly. I also bought inexpensive off-white slipcovers to unify the set, then dyed those brown because the off-white clashed with the rest of the room. The covers worked, but over time they grew baggy and sloppy — they tightened after drying but loosened quickly with use.
The slipcovers looked fine at first, but they became droopy and messy after a few sits and washes. Washing them every week to make them look good again wasn’t realistic. Since I’d already painted one chair and discovered it looked fine beneath a slipcover, I decided to test spray painting the rest. I had slipcovers to hide any mistakes, so the risk was low.
Instead of craft paint plus textile medium (which hadn’t worked well previously), I used a spray paint I’d used before: Rustoleum Universal Metallic in Oil-Rubbed Bronze. Yes — I sprayed upholstery, and yes — it felt a little reckless. But with eight slipcovers to stash any potential disaster, I took the leap.
First I protected my feet with “painting socks” so my shoes didn’t get sticky — practical and oddly glamorous. I wore sweatpants tucked into them to keep paint off my clothes.
I started very cautiously: super light, even mist coats on a single chair. No heavy globs, no drips. After about four thin coats applied one after another, the results surprised me. The embossed pattern in the fabric still showed as texture, but the riot of stains and faded swirls was gone — replaced by a consistent gunmetal-charcoal tone that reads like charcoal gray upholstery in most lighting.
The Oil-Rubbed Bronze spray had a slight metallic sheen in some lights, but it mostly reads as a deep charcoal gray — a pleasant surprise given that ORB typically reads as a dark brown on metal. The chair legs got sprayed too, and they finished closer to the expected dark chocolate ORB shade with a subtle sheen. Those legs became my favorite detail: whether we keep slipcovers or eventually reupholster, the painted legs will remain an attractive feature.
If you’re considering spray painting upholstery, a few practical tips that helped here: buy a quality spray paint, use many thin mist coats to avoid drips, keep the can moving, and test on a small area first. The metallic sheen is subtle and mostly visible only at specific angles. Photos can exaggerate the pattern or sheen, so in-person impressions may be more forgiving.
Surprisingly, the fabric’s hand — how it feels — didn’t change much. The upholstery still feels like the original dense hotel fabric: firm and durable but not crunchy. My theory is that spray paint lay on the surface thinly rather than soaking in like brush-applied paint, so the texture remains similar. A reader pointed out that these chairs may be covered in Crypton or a similar protective finish, which would keep paint from penetrating and explain why the finish sat on top of the fabric instead of becoming stiff — that makes sense and helps explain the success.
There are a couple of important caveats. I only would have attempted this because:
- I had already painted one chair and confirmed it looked fine under a slipcover, and
- I had slipcovers ready to hide any mistakes.
These chairs used thick upholstery fabric, not delicate velvet or silk. Spray paint on delicate fabrics could make them stiff or crunchy. Different paints, heavier application, or other fabrics could produce very different results. If you’re curious, test a few light, even coats on a scrap of similar fabric first.
Another common question: will the paint rub off on clothing? After allowing the chairs to dry and cure outdoors for several days, they no longer smelled of paint and didn’t transfer color when rubbed with a damp cloth. Because the paint used was oil-based and fully cured, it held fast and didn’t bleed onto clothes in our tests.
As for how we feel about the result: it’s a practical, temporary improvement. The charcoal finish is a clear upgrade over the green experiment and, in person, looks better than the saggy slipcovers. Someday we might reupholster or tailor new covers, but for now this fix works. We still have the brown slipcovers if we want to switch back.
There’s a lesson here about Craigslist bargains: inexpensive chairs with unusual patterns can be tricky to cover with standard slipcovers, but with a little creativity and careful testing, you can make them work. Have you ever reached the end of your rope and spray painted something out of desperation? These chairs have been painted, slipcovered, dyed, and repainted — and they’ve still been useful and seating for years. Sometimes stubbornness and a willingness to experiment pay off.