Lately we’ve seen some classic old second-hand store chairs transformed with paint in a way we hadn’t considered, to very cool effect. Painting a wood chair half-way white creates a sort of optical illusion: part of the chair seems to recede and becomes pleasantly ghostly.

It lightens and transforms this heavy wooden desk chair while leaving its some of its history visible.

Some of these chairs appear to be “dip-dyed” by lowering it part-way into a vat of paint and pulling it out again. Sideways dip-dying created an interesting effect with a stripped chair.

We think of all the bent wood ice-cream parlor and bistro chairs we’ve seen that would sparkle from this simple approach.

Upside-down dip-dying these stools (by dip-dying their tops, rather than their legs), seems to modernize them.