I have a beautiful antique oak table that belonged to my great-grandparents, who recieved it as a wedding present and used it their entire lives. My Mom & I found it in a family tobacco barn and we refinished it when I was about 10 years old.

Anyway, I have no matching chairs to it. Instead, of I have a set from late 60's/early 70's, very simple back, slightly curved. The two outer spindles on the back have a little bit of decorative shaping to them. The legs also have the same type of shape. Unfortunately, someone not very artistic painted a rose, some leave, a gold banner on the chair back (uh, the front of the chair, not the back if you stood behind it).

Since buying new chairs of good quality that would be matching stain would be incredibly expensive, I was thinking of painting the ones that I have in a complementry color to the rest of my stuff.

My favorite color is bright red, and I have bright red dishes.
My kitchen is black / red / white
I also like metallics, especially copper

So far, my 3 ideas are:

Semi gloss black, made to look aged.
Bright red paint made to look old.
Copper with cold and silver accents, all kind of muted and made to look old.

Somebody please help me! I can't figure out what would look good!!! Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

How far are you from going to any nice Thrift Stores? They often times will have something nice, but not expensive, to go with what you have. All of my clothes including the dressy clothes I took to my Mexico trip last March all came from the local thrift store - Not a Salvation Army type store - but maybe a "high end" type.

There are many thrift stores in my area, but generally don't have chairs this old. Most look to be 1940's or newer (which would never go with the table).

I'm usually at one of the many thrift stores at least twice a week. I've also visited antique malls. I would have to spend a fortune to get 4 chairs at an antique store, and then they probably would not match.

Have you thought about stripping, sanding and refinishing the chairs you have? I know painting them would be easiest, but staining them would be cool. you don't have to match the stain of the table exact. Go for a shade that is maybe 2 shades lighter or darker than the table. A friend of mine and I did this and it looks cool (her table is not an antique), her chairs are 2 shades lighter than the table.