Use A Piece Of Clothing To Recover A Chair

A chair here, a chair there, everywhere a chair chair. I tend to recite this in my head  when walking into the garage or basement. It’s reeeeally hard for me to pass on one; they’re so dang easy to redo.

This old chair only cost $.50 down from $10 originally. With the weak state it was in, no wonder no one wanted it. It was wobbly, falling apart at the seams, and the legs were seriously gouged towards the bottom. For some reason, I don’t seem to notice the very obvious flaws. Especially when they only cost pennies.

The original seat actually didn’t look too bad. It wasn’t torn, however it had tons of minute scuffs. In trying to take off the leather, the padding underneath was stuck to everything. After making a mess of the original seat, it was decided to make a new one.

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Use A Piece Of Clothing To Recover A Chair

Use an old piece of clothing to recover a small piece of furniture. There are some cute clothes out there! For this and more great ideas, visit AmbientWares.com
I don’t know why I didn’t remove the legs before taking the picture.
Use an old piece of clothing to recover a small piece of furniture. There are some cute clothes out there! For this and more great ideas, visit AmbientWares.com
Look, another chair behind it.
Use an old piece of clothing to recover a small piece of furniture. There are some cute clothes out there! For this and more great ideas, visit AmbientWares.com
Whaaa? Yet another chair behind it.

The chair behind it in the picture above was made over with nautical colors and a secret hiding place.

I chopped off the feet a couple of inches up with the jigsaw then placed a level on the seat to make sure it was even. I reinforced most of the chairs joints with wood screws to tighten everything up.

I sanded all around to prep for the use of Valspar chalk paint I’d picked up from our local Habitat Restore. While it’s a beautiful, vibrant, pinky purple color, I found it had less than stellar coverage but am guessing it’s because the wood underneath was so dark and I did nothing to prepare it outside of sanding and cleaning. This is after 5 or 6 coats. It might look thoroughly covered…it wasn’t.

Use an old piece of clothing to recover a small piece of furniture. There are some cute clothes out there! For this and more great ideas, visit AmbientWares.com Instead of continuing on with the pink, I switched gears, deciding to make my own chalk paint using a recipe I’d found over at My Repurposed Life forever ago from an oopsie can of flat latex paint in light purple.

The homemade chalk paint dried extremely quickly. You can see the wetter spots and this is after the first coat which covered very well over that hot pink/purple. After the 2nd coat had dried, I did a little distressing, sealing it with Folk Art’s Clear Wax.Use an old piece of clothing to recover a small piece of furniture. There are some cute clothes out there! For this and more great ideas, visit AmbientWares.com

For the seat, I used a 1″ thick piece of foam and I already had batting which I layered on top of the foam.

Use an old piece of clothing to recover a small piece of furniture. There are some cute clothes out there! For this and more great ideas, visit AmbientWares.comDeciding on fabric was hard. Looking through my stash, I found they either didn’t match well or the ones matching, were merely scraps. I went to sales and thrift stores but, didn’t come across anything I liked.

One day I pulled out a skirt I loved, yet never did fit well. I figured I’d donate it right back to the store I got it from. At some point though, I thought about that purple chair. This might just work.

Use an old piece of clothing to recover a small piece of furniture. There are some cute clothes out there! For this and more great ideas, visit AmbientWares.com

I laid the seat form on top of the fabric, making sure the seams were even, and cut.

Use an old piece of clothing to recover a small piece of furniture. There are some cute clothes out there! For this and more great ideas, visit AmbientWares.comI only laid the wood down when I cut the fabric. I completely forgot to add the foam and batting and was afraid I hadn’t cut enough fabric to wrap around and staple. Luckily, it all worked out.

Use an old piece of clothing to recover a small piece of furniture. There are some cute clothes out there! For this and more great ideas, visit AmbientWares.com
I’ve added the padding to test out if the amount I cut would work

Here’s our trusty stapler we got from Harbor Freight. FYI it’s much cheaper at Harbor Freight than it is on Amazon. We read up on it before purchasing and it seemed to have good reviews overall.

The one thing which can be a little daunting is it does not have a safety. One of our air nailers, for example, has a piece on the tip where the nails come out only when the tip is pushing on a surface. If the piece is not pushed in, the nail gun will not work.

This stapler however, does not. You have to be safe, smart, and aware at all times. Other than those crazy safety bits, it works awesome and I love it.

Use an old piece of clothing to recover a small piece of furniture. There are some cute clothes out there! For this and more great ideas, visit AmbientWares.com

Pulling the fabric taut, I started by stapling the center of each side, working my way out to the corners. Each corner was tricky for different reasons. I just went into it as if I were wrapping the ends of a present.

Use an old piece of clothing to recover a small piece of furniture. There are some cute clothes out there! For this and more great ideas, visit AmbientWares.com

Afterwards, the seat was screwed to the frame from underneath. I’m happy to have saved this little one and I love how the seams from the skirt add to the look. Did I do right by choosing the skirt fabric?

Use an old piece of clothing to recover a small piece of furniture. There are some cute clothes out there! For this and more great ideas, visit AmbientWares.com

Use an old piece of clothing to recover a small piece of furniture. There are some cute clothes out there! For this and more great ideas, visit AmbientWares.com

Use an old piece of clothing to recover a small piece of furniture. There are some cute clothes out there! For this and more great ideas, visit AmbientWares.com
Not the best corner

Use an old piece of clothing to recover a small piece of furniture. There are some cute clothes out there! For this and more great ideas, visit AmbientWares.com

Use an old piece of clothing to recover a small piece of furniture. There are some cute clothes out there! For this and more great ideas, visit AmbientWares.com

Use an old piece of clothing to recover a small piece of furniture. There are some cute clothes out there! For this and more great ideas, visit AmbientWares.com

Use an old piece of clothing to recover a small piece of furniture. There are some cute clothes out there! For this and more great ideas, visit AmbientWares.com #chairmakeover #chairproject #usesforoldclothing

13 thoughts on “Use A Piece Of Clothing To Recover A Chair

  1. Love the peek a boo color of your base cots through your DIY chalk paint. You can’t go wrong with using MRL chalk paint recipe, Gail uses it for everything! So smart to recover the chair with something you had too. Now I’ll look twice before donating anything just in case it has a second life somewhere in my house! Good job:)

    1. Thank you Wendi! Yes, I’ve followed Gail for a long time and this was my first try at making it. I couldn’t be happier with the ease & simplicity of mixing it as well as painting with it. It’s nice thinking I can get at least one more use out of the skirt leftovers too. For what, I don’t know but, I can’t wait to come up with something 😉

  2. I love this chair repurposing project! I went to my local thrift store a few months ago and got this really cute chair that I wanted to repaint and re-upholster, but I couldn’t decode where to start. Thanks so much for the inspiration! I love the paint colors and fabric you picked too.. so lively!

    1. Thanks Jocelyn! I can get pretty bold with my color choices sometimes 😀 I hope to see your refinished chair in the future!

  3. It’s perfect! I love the skirt fabric turned chair cover. I feel your pain about passing up chairs – I usually am forced to walk away from them. I haven’t got much space for furniture, or furniture projects, but there are just so many vintage chairs out there that could be lovely with some attention.

    1. I do believe it’s a real problem, Vanessa. I also don’t have the space for it all but, I want it all! Makes sense to me 😉 Thank you!

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