armchair makeover: done!

Wow. Just this week I had a moment of wondering if I ever posted the rest of this chair makeover. And then I realized I didn’t. So, here goes. What we had left to do was just paint and re-assemble the chair, really the easiest two steps.

We decided to go dark with the chairs since the walls and carpet are neutral in our place. I love crisp white things but they would get lost with all the other neutrals. We used Krylon spray primer and oil rubbed bronze for the color. A quick, light coat of primer did the trick and then we Al got to spraying them. Each chair took two coats of paint to get full coverage.

They covered really well and dried nice and evenly. We painted them at one of the locals parks so while they dried I tortured Al with making him do a cross fit workout with me that I lead. Poor guy.

Once we got them home we started to re-assemble. First, using scrap fabric that I had I covered the back hole of each chair. I just cut the fabric to the size and used my staple gun to secure. The seat bottom was easy to re-attach, just needed to set it on the chair and drill the screws in. The top front piece was a two-man job.

One of us would have to hold it perfectly in place while the other hammered. For this we just hammered nails right through the cushion to attach to the wood. We evenly spaced the nails and then re-used the original tacks that were on it to cover each nail. It actually worked out perfectly and saved me some money because I had originally planned to buy new upholstery tacks.

That was it! Our two free chairs got an inexpensive makeover.

The fabric and paint cost a total of $25, so $12.50 per chair. I’ll take that price any day. One more before and after!

 

armchair makeover: phase 1

I’ve already shared a few times about these amazing chairs Al happened to find in our back alleyway one night when he was taking out the trash. Despite their age they were in phenomenal condition.

I’ve gone back and forth a million times on how to make them over and finally settled on a dark base color with blue and green fabric. Thing is I would have loved to paint them white, since let’s be honest I love all things white. But with the walls and carpet in our apartment a very white/neutral color I know the chairs would seem lost if they were white too.

So we went dark! Today I’m sharing phase one of the chairs. I love chair makeovers, that’s also no surprise since I’ve done them here, here, here, here and here. They’re just so easy and inexpensive and I always feel so accomplished when they’re complete.

I started by taking the chair apart. I unscrewed the seat bottom, there were three screws on each seat. The seat backs were trickier.

They had loads of tacks and underneath every tack was a nail, that was half nailed into the wood and then half bent.

Using a flat head screw driver and pliers I removed all of the tacks and nails. Once I had the seat back off there were loads of old staples in the wood.

Using the pliers I removed all of those as well. I then removed the fabric from the seat back using the same pliers and screw driver.

There were many layers of old fabric on them but I only removed the latest one. Once removed, I traced the seat bottom and back on my new fabric so I had my pieces all ready to secure.

This part of the process definitely took me the longest and my arms certainly got a workout pulling all those nails and staples out. Though, once this part was complete the rest was pretty easy. Stay tuned!

new chairs!

I mentioned a few weeks ago in my high-five for Friday post that we had scored a few chairs that were sitting next to the dumpster behind our building  They’re really in perfect condition and I will never understand why people just throw things away. Donate, people! Keep perfectly good things out of landfills!

Anyway, the chairs.

I love everything about them. The shape and lines, the oval backs, the wide arms. But I can’t decide how to make them over. Help!

Should I paint them white, black or ORB like my last chair makeover? Or maybe a fun, bright color? Or re-stain them? What about fabric? Plain? Geometric? Stripes?

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So…what do you guys think? How should I makeover these chairs? I’m open to any and all suggestions because I really can’t make a decision on them. Send me pictures, tag me in pins. Any inspiration is great! I’m hoping to get started on these this weekend and I can’t wait…as soon as I know what I’m doing to them!