'Polishing' Fail and Stool Options

Someone was giving me an awful lot of trouble last night (and for once I'm not talking about naughty Sadie).  It was that vintage warehouse stool that I picked up from Bauer Brother's last week.  Grrr!

I loved all the suggestions you gals gave me in the comments (also the sweet messages that made me feel better about our home repair situation).  Ultimately your comments led me to a good plan for the lil' ol' stool.  Here's a little photoshop visual for what I was thinking:

A few of you said to leave it as is and just spiff up the seat and chair back.  I thought that might work, but I did decide that the legs had to be a different color, especially since the stool started to find a home in our kitchen/ dining area and those red hot legs were not very complimentary to the dark red paint on the walls.  So, I will be DIY updating the legs with Rustoleum's 'Gloss Gray Hammered Metal' (to keep the industrial feel) and will be leaving the seat and chair back as is in order to keep that vintage look (but with a little polishing).

With my plan in mind, I started sanding the stool legs to chip off loose paint and smooth out the metal surface so it would be ready to paint.

I then started to sand the seat in order to get it cleaned up. It was an odd surface to sand- it wasn't wood exactly, nor was it plastic.  Heck, it seemed kind of rubbery? Hmmm, Mystery Material Anyone? Sounds good, I'll take two!  I still don't quite know what material was I sanding. However, after exerting a little elbow grease while sanding away at the dirt, real grease and paint stains, it started to 'polish up' nicely......or so I thought.

After that I started to clean up the chair back a little bit.  I decided to get rid of the "warehouse" writing so it would look a bit fresher.  The chair back wasn't made of the same Mystery Material that the seat was made out of.  It was plain ol' paint and wood.

Then, I began to notice a problem...

My attempt at 'polishing' up the seat and chair back had completely altered their surface textures.  

Here is a 'before' photo:

And here is how they were looking after my sanding efforts:

 Boo...... Polishing FAIL!

I was really happy with the seat, but I think I killed the chair back.  I must have been sanding like a MANIAC!  I know I might just be super picky, but I'm not liking how the chair back looks like wood, and the seat looks like white painted plastic. 

So it looks like the seat and chair back are going to need a paint job also now.  Back to the idea board!

I started to look up a few totally new ideas, here's the rundown for what I am thinking:

1. Painting the legs and chair back one color (Gloss Gray Hammered Metal) and painting the seat an antique white?

 Or...

2. Still painting the metals surfaces the metal paint color, then painting the seat and chair back a dark brown (similar to a dark walnut wood color)?

Lastly...

3. Paint the whole stool white?

 If I paint the whole thing white, I might have the beginnings of a fun little set of mismatched vintage stools because my other vintage stool will have a color-coordinating buddy!

Yuck!  I need a better picture of this cute little guy!

Well, I did say I wanted a project to work on, I certainly got my wish!  What do you think?  

Option 1, 2 or 3???