Ugly to Lovely: A Chair Makeover

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This is a makeover project, and this chair was long overdue. I bought this chair for $10 about 20 years ago. Soon after I bought it, a friend recovered the seat with a neutral, if not boring, fabric. We used it for a few years, then it ended up in the basement for at least the last 10 years. No one sat on it. It was up against the wall by the ping-pong table, and balls always seemed to get caught underneath it. I really liked the chair, though, and that’s why it survived many rounds of purging at the second hand store. For the makeover, I did a simple refresh of new paint and new fabric on the cushion.

This is a makeover project, and this chair was long overdue. I bought this chair for $10 about 20 years ago. Soon after I bought it, a friend recovered the seat with a neutral, if not boring, fabric. We used it for a few years, then it ended up in the basement for at least the last 10 years. No one sat on it. It was up against the wall by the ping-pong table, and balls always seemed to get caught underneath it.

This is a makeover project, and this chair was long overdue. I bought this chair for $10 about 20 years ago. Soon after I bought it, a friend recovered the seat with a neutral, if not boring, fabric. We used it for a few years, then it ended up in the basement for at least the last 10 years. No one sat on it. It was up against the wall by the ping-pong table, and balls always seemed to get caught underneath it.

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Tools and Supplies:

Chair before makeover.

First, I removed the seat cushion by unscrewing four screws from underneath. I used Hercules Handcleaning/Plumbing Towels to degloss and clean the wood chair frame. This might seem like an odd product to use to degloss paint, but it works. I found out it deglosses paint when I used them to wipe down my kitchen cabinets. As I was doing it, I noticed it was taking the shine off, so I stopped before I got very far. It is always best to prep furniture pieces before painting. The “normal” ways of prepping furniture for new paint are sanding with fine sandpaper, using a deglosser such as Klean-Strip Liquid Sander Deglosser, or priming with a paint primer such as Krylon All-Purpose White Primer Spray. I typically sand and then prime. This time I felt like deglossing, so that’s what I did.

Chair Makeover. Cleaning and deglossing before repainting.

This is the frame after deglossing.

Chair Makeover. Deglossing old paint before repainting.

Next, I spray painted the frame gloss black (Rust-Oleum American Accents Ultra Cover 2X Spray Paint, Gloss Black). I turned the chair over and spray painted the bottom and side surfaces first. Then after it was dry, I turned the frame over and spray painted the top surfaces.

Chair Makeover. Spray painting the wood chair frame.

With the frame done, I turned my attention to the seat cushion. I took off the cover fabric with a flat-head screwdriver and pliers. I left the original fabric on (blue stripes). Depending on the condition of the original fabric and how involved you want to get, you can take off the original fabric too and add new padding. I wanted a simple makeover so I left the fabric and padding alone.

Chair Makeover. The ugly seat cushion.
Chair Makeover. The ugly seat cushion.

I bought the fabric at Hobby Lobby. It is a large floral print, and I spent some time repositioning the fabric on the cushion until I was happy with where the flowers were positioned on the seat. I don’t know why, but I found it helpful to take photos with my phone, then judge from the photo if I liked the placement of the flower pattern.

DIY chair makeover with large floral print fabric for the seat cover.

Next, I carefully turned the seat and fabric over being careful to keep the fabric in place. Then I trimmed some of the extra fabric leaving roughly 6 inches extra on all sides.

Recovering a chair seat with a floral pattern fabric.

The next part is where I had some trouble. I have an old manual staple gun and it was very hard to operate. I couldn’t do it because I don’t have the grip strength (do to mild arthritis) so I enlisted the help of my daughter. She is a fit teenager who can drive a golf ball 175 yards, but could just barely make the darn staple gun work. The good thing is she could do it, but she could only do a few staples then would have to rest her hand. So the bottom line is, we put in fewer staples than we would have liked. You can put in more than we did, even put in two rows of staples if you want to.

We (she) stapled the front first, then we pushed the cushion into that row of staples to tighten up the fabric and stapled the back (opposite side) of the cushion.

Stapling new fabric to an old cushion for a chair makeover.

We repeated the process for the other two sides.

Stapling new fabric to an old cushion for a chair makeover.

We left “flaps” as shown in the photos below at the four corners.

Stapling new fabric to an old cushion for a chair makeover.
Stapling new fabric to an old cushion for a chair makeover.

Next I pulled the flaps toward the center, and my daughter stapled them down. I trimmed extra fabric and applied Scotchgard Fabric & Upholstery Protector. Finally, I reattached the cushion to the chair frame with the original screws.

Stapling new fabric to an old cushion for a chair makeover.
Stapling new fabric to an old cushion for a chair makeover.

I am so glad I gave this tired chair a new chance at life!

This is a makeover project, and this chair was long overdue. I bought this chair for $10 about 20 years ago. Soon after I bought it, a friend recovered the seat with a neutral, if not boring, fabric. We used it for a few years, then it ended up in the basement for at least the last 10 years. No one sat on it. It was up against the wall by the ping-pong table, and balls always seemed to get caught underneath it.
From Ugly to Lovely: A Chair Makeover.
Ugly to Lovely Chair Makeover.

I hope you are having a fab day. All my best, and thanks again for joining me!
Jen

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