How to Paint a Fabric Chair

Prepare the chair. Before starting anything, clean your couch or chair. Vacuum all the nooks and crannies, or you could even steam clean it. Pick a location for painting your couch or chair where dirt or high winds won't get to it. Once you’ve found a spot, grab your plastic cover and neatly place it on the ground, then place your couch or chair on top of it.

Tape the trimming. Take your painter's tape and cover all the trimming of the couch or chair. Cover anything and everything that you don't want paint on.

• You can take your fabric softener (make sure you dilute it- 2 parts water to 3 parts softener) and pre-soften your couch or chair by 'painting' it on with a sponge. Make sure to let it fully dry before starting. Doing this will give it extra freshness and make it softer after the paint sets.^[1]

Open your paint. Take your mixing stick and mix the paint thoroughly.^[2] Now you need to mix the paint and the textile medium. It took us about 64 ounces of paint and 32 ounces of textile medium for our chair, so estimate the amount you need accordingly. It’s supposed to be 1 part medium to 2 parts paint, so take the amount of medium you have, and add twice the amount of paint. There is a little bit of math involved, but that’s why you need to stay in school. Grab your painter's tray, pour in the right amounts of paint and medium, and mix well!

Grab your rollers and start painting.^[3] See How to Use a Paint Roller. When you paint, you should have nice even strokes-very similar to painting a wall. You don’t want to dab too much paint onto one area, light strokes are the key. The fabric absorbs the paint very quickly, so don’t worry about the light areas, you will need to do a couple more coats once it’s dry.

Put one last overcoat.^[4] Once the paint is dry and the furniture's almost completely covered, go ahead and do one last coat of paint and medium. Make sure everything looks nice and smooth (this step doesn't require a lot of paint because it doesn't absorb so much). Once your furniture is completely dry, take your sandpaper and start sanding the rough areas to smooth it down and even it out. Then take a clothing iron and iron your couch or chair to set the textile medium; do not use steam,and keep the iron between low and medium. Don't let it linger in one spot too long.