Cheap Chair Makeover

A while ago, we picked up this chair for 15 bucks off of craigslist.

I wasn't really sure what I was going to do with it, but I thought she had some serious potential with her wavy back and curvy legs;)Yes, please feel free to enter that sentence into the Top 100 Things That Sound Really Dirty but Aren't contest. The black paint had been applied pretty badly...also, it was oil based, so I knew I didn't want to try and sand it all off. After removing the seat, I scrubbed the frame down with deglosser and a green scrubby pad. The "upholstery" was just a very thin piece of muslin, so that had to go, too. I really didn't want to spend a bunch of money, either, so I painted it with some leftover teal and gave it a quick gloss to protect the finish form two adorable little children who shall remain nameless. After I pulled off the thin piece of muslin, I discovered that our chair was one of those chairs:

Yep, she was one of those fake needlepoint kind of girls. We sort of had one of those, oh, honey moments. And then we got over it and bought her some brand new fabric in a great shade of tangerine. A 50% off sale combined with coupon meant we walked out of there with a 1/2 yard of upholstery fabric for about 5 bucks.

I just centered the pattern on the seat and began my faux-pholstery, as we like to call it ;)Once centered, I flipped the seat over and used a staple gun to secure the fabric to the left side.

I started on the left since I am right handed- that meant I had my dominant hand free to really pull the fabric tight (like so tight you think it's going to rip) before I secured it. Then, just pleat the 4 corners and staple them:

sorry for the blur

Secure the front and back:

And, done!

The finished product:

Not counting drying times, I spent just slightly over an hour working on the chair. I originally planned to re sell, but I think I'm going to hang on to this one ;)


Linking With:

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