Transforming an old Chair

Certain things draw me in. Chairs are one of them. Why, I have no idea! I was trying to explain to my family, the last time we were together. Maybe it was because we were away for our annual Thanksgiving weekend, and we went to a thrift store, and I loaded up the van with four “new” dining chairs…. Did I need those chairs??? Heck no!!! We have a barn full of chairs. I explained that maybe I have a deep rooted desire to make sure everyone has a spot to sit and feel welcome in our home….haha…it’s probably that I just can’t pass up a good deal! (they were $6 each!) But that is another post.

My $20 Thrift Store Chair! (complete with cat hair)

Today I am sharing how I transformed this old chair I found in a thrift store a couple weeks before the said dining chairs!

This chair was only $20! The carvings on it were so beautiful. The stories it could tell!

pulling the old trim off
removing the staples

The first thing I did was remove the seat material. I pulled off the trim. It was just glued on. Then I went to work on removing the red velvet. There were a ton of staples, but I managed to get them out with just a screw driver.

Next step was paint. I use one of my faves…Rustoleum Chalked Paint in linen white. It covers well, and no prep. (I just wiped any dust and dirt off with an old cloth) I gave it three coats.

old piece of fabric
traced it on my new piece using chalk
it fits!

I purchased some soft pink upholstery fabric for the seat. I took the old piece of velvet and laid it on the new fabric and traced around it with a piece of teal chalk. (I figured if I made a mistake, it was easy to remove the chalk mark) and then just cut the fabric, following the chalk mark.

staple your fabric on
staple as close to the wood as possible

Next was stapling the fabric right over the seat. Try to get as close to the edge as possible.

The reason I say this is because I had bought pretty trim, but it was too skinny to cover the staples and the edge of the fabric. Good thing trim is inexpensive, I had to buy new wider trim. (the trim was honestly the hardest part, because I’m not very good at measuring things and didn’t have enough!! I was out by 2 inches!!) I used my trusty glue gun to attach the trim around the edge of the chair, covering the staples and edge of the material.