Painting Adirondack Chairs As a Family Project
Two of my brothers just visited us from out of state. They came with their families and we had a great time. The house was buzzing with the energy of all the kids.
Also, I find myself laughing more when I’m with my brothers than any other time.
I’m telling you about this here because Adirondack chairs were a part of the good times in a couple of ways. You might find the little project below fun for your own family.
As you might imagine, an assortment of Adirondack chairs makes up the outdoors seating at our place. We aren’t too concerned about have things match, so our chairs are a variety of styles and woods, painted various colors that have accumulated over the years. The repainting schedule is erratic, so the color is whatever appealed to my wife at the time. (I have to admit, I became more fond of the purple stage than I expected I would)
Fortunately, Rachel (my wife) and I share a fondness for Adirondack chairs. She’s almost bad as I am about buying them. Even though we really didn’t need any more chairs, she bought a couple of kits for Adirondacks when she was visiting her sister just because they were a good deal. I had to agree with her - it was a good price for nicely designed pine chairs. She bought two.
I eventually put them together. Then they sat unfinished. That is, until the arrival of my brothers and their families.
Each of these two brothers has a daughter, each of whom is now around 13 years old. They get along great and were “thick as thieves” all week.
I forget who’s idea it was, probably Rachel’s, but someone asked the girls if they’d be interested in painting and decorating the chairs. The chairs were sitting there like a blank canvas. The idea immediately appealed to both of them.
It became a fun little project. I got out the primer and a couple of brushes, set them up on our gravel drive, then walked away.
They did a fine job. Now, there was quite a bit of primer on them, and a spatter on a near-by car (fortunately the car was one for which the spatter was actually an improvement), but over all it was a fine job. It had them laughing a good portion of the afternoon.
The next day was more fun. Sarah took them to the paint store to pick out the colors. I’ll leave it to you imagination to as to what the color schemes two girls nearing puberty might choose, especially if there’s a bit of friendly competition between them. Let’s just say the chairs are colorful, very colorful.
Of course they both wound up with about as much paint on them as the chairs.
The whole deal was just fun. The chairs are completely unique. Now we have a fun reminder of our nieces and this summer’s visit, as well as a story to tell when company comes and admires our completely unique chairs.
My Mom used to say that part of a parent’s job is to create happy memories for their children. I think she was right, and I’d like to think that my nieces will have the painting project as a happy memory of their youth. It was an easy thing to do that gave them a lot of pleasure and a sense of independence (they could paint them anyway they wanted) and accomplishment. Pretty good deal for the price of a couple of pints of paint.
Of course the Tom Sawyer in me loved that the chairs got painted without me touching a brush.