This post may contain affiliate links. If you click on a link and purchase an item, I will receive a small commission. For more info, please see my disclosure on my Connect page.

Since it’s St. Patty’s Day, I figured it would be a fun time to share a little stool makeover I did for my oldest daughter’s room a while back. If you follow on Instagram you’ve already seen this, but I totally forgot to share it here. I have a camera full of projects that I forget to blog about, so hopefully I can get a little better at that in the future! I’m working on putting all my photos in some sort of order on my computer. Maybe that will help me get my act together, no promises.

Lou-Lou has a beautiful old vanity in her bedroom. It was mine when I was a little girl and has been in my family for many decades. The problem with this particular piece of antique furniture is that it has a short and narrow opening to pull a seat up to, making it nearly impossible to find a chair to fit. I had been hunting FB selling groups, yard sales, and KSL for several years and had pretty much given up until one afternoon when I ran down to the basement to grab a piece of sandpaper and stumbled upon this sad, old bar-stool.

We have had this old thing for 10 or 11 years. I think I found it at a yard sale when we bought our first home. At one time it was actually used as a bar-stool, another point it was a table for our telephone (It still weirds me out that regular telephones are dinosaurs now. I swear I’m not that old yet!). When we moved to our new house, out of necessity and desperation, that bar-stool became my nightstand. When I finally found something better, the bar-stool got banished to the basement.

With gorilla glue drips down the leg and a beat up paint job, to say it had seen better days would be an understatement but I had an idea.

I measured the height of the antique vanity and realized that the width of the bar-stool was perfect. The only problem being it was much too tall. I figured out a good height for the seat, then measured the legs on the bar-stool and made a mark on each of the legs.

I used my reciprocating saw to cut the legs off at my marks.

If you’ve never used a saw before, don’t be scared. Recip saws are very simple to use. Just keep that metal plate against your project, hold tight with your opposite hand, and pull the trigger. You’ll be surprised at how easy it is.

I’m totally going to figure out something fun to do with the base that I cut off.
At least that’s what I keep telling myself and my husband.
I have issues.

Next I gave the new, shorter stool a good sanding. I also sanded the bottom of the feet to make sure they sat right on the ground without wobbling. After I finished sanding, I wiped it all down with a tack cloth to get all the dust and junk off.
Then, I sprayed it with a few coats of beautiful emerald green spray paint.

Remember when you spray paint that several thin coats will look MUCH better than 1 thick drippy, goopy one so be patient. It will pay off.

After it dried real well, I measured how high I wanted the feet to come up and used blue painters tape to tape off the legs.
Then I took an old plastic bag out of the recycle and stuck the top of the stool inside. I also used another old bag to put on the inside of the legs, then I taped both those bags on.
This will act as a mask to shield the rest of the project from the next coat of paint.

I used a shiny gold paint I bought at my awesome local Do-It- Best hardware store to give the stool some glam. Gold spray paint can be tricky, but the Do-It-Best brand worked out exactly as I wanted.

After the paint was mostly dry, I carefully removed the tape, then gave it a quick spray with some top coat to seal.

From a sad and forgotten old castoff to an emerald green & gold stool fit for an imaginary princess!

Not only does my spitfire have a sassy new seat, but I cleared an old piece of junk out of the hoard basement without throwing it away at only the cost of a couple cans of spray paint. Win/Win!

Now to do something with the rest of the stuff hiding in the basement…
Although, it IS St. Patty’s Day, so Darby O’Gill and the Little People might be a better idea.
Yep, I’m going with that.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

And, just because I loves ya!