Counter Stool Makeover

I don’t know that I have ever put so much time into a furniture flip in my life. Was it worth it? 1,000 times yes! Would I do it again? Absolutely not. 🙂

After a year of searching for secondhand counter stools, I finally found these three oak bar stools on Facebook marketplace! They were nearly perfect for what I wanted – solid wood, unique, and came in a set of 3. The only drawbacks were that they were a smidge too tall and I would need to refinish them. But I thought to myself, I could probably cut them down, sand, stain, and finish them within a couple weeks pretty easily. HA!

Fast forward 4 months…after 22 hours of sanding with Chris, 3 days of staining, and 9 coats of Polycrylic, I can finally say they’re done. And I’m OBSESSED!

It’s fascinating to me how much these stools alone have impacted the feel of the entire kitchen. Previously we had white Ikea stools that were a “for the time being” purchase. And at the time I felt that white stools were the best choice for a black and white kitchen. But as our house has transformed into a more cabin aesthetic, the kitchen felt a little out of place with its modern touches. So in my search for “new” counter stools, it was important to me to get wood stools that could provide character.

And with the addition of the dark stained wood counter stools that show scratches, dents, and plenty of character…our modern kitchen suddenly feels warmer and softer. Picking a stain color was fairly simple. We chose Coffee by Minwax and this is not the first time you’ve seen this stain color in our house. I used this on our coffee table, the frame above our couch, and our back door. But aside from the fact that this is my current favorite stain color, I knew it would be a beautiful contrast against our light wood island top and inset.

Of course we did have to trim the legs about 4 inches so that they’d fit and to be honest, I like that the legs don’t taper so aggressively anymore. Chris found a genius way to cut the angled legs level.

After months of working on these stools, the last thing I wanted to do was painstakingly brush on 3 coats of Polycrylic on each stool. So I did a little research and learned that you can spray Polycrylic with a paint sprayer! And to my surprise, it worked like a charm! Honestly, the years of my life I’ve wasted on brushing Polycrylic on my past furniture flips. I used this ultra flat top coat and this paint sprayer (that’s under $50!!!) to seal the stools. I applied three coats on each stool and lightly sanded in between each coat. And because I sprayed the sealer I was able to finish all three stools in ONE day!!

If you’d like to watch how I refinished these stools from start to finish, (with links to everything) you can watch the whole transformation here.