DIY Project: Revitalize an Old Chair - Part 1 of 3

This past weekend, I decided to experiment with modernizing an old traditional rocking chair. Here's the chair that I found at a garage sale for $25! The style of the chair - early American - was not to my typical liking. Then, I started envisioning ways of revitalizing its original heritage with a contemporary color treatment - glossy herbal green - to be exact. For $25 I was sold. I handed the seller my money and off to Home Depot happily I went.

DIY Project: Revitalize an Old Chair - Part 2 of 3

At Home Depot, I invested in a orbital sander which was $30 (with my coupon). I figured having a little "help" would not be a bad idea and could save hours of manual labor. Here's a picture after I stripped its original skin. This took about 1 1/2 hours to complete. All the curved areas required manually sanding and some good old fashion s-w-e-a-t. A word of caution, whenever you use a sander, you should wear googles and a mask! I learned the hard way with a severely irritated eye and hacking cough that took a day to get rid of. (No worries...I'm feeling better now).

Here's another photo with my first coat of tinted primer. Alas, the light is at the end of the tunnel. Now for the final coat of paint.