My love for thrift store shopping all started when we first moved into our house three years ago, and I realized I couldn't afford to decorate our entire home with brand new furniture. I began searching for inexpensive ways to furnish our house, and soon learned just how many treasures were waiting to be unearthed at nearby thrift stores. I've transformed a lot of junk in the past few years....old dressers, tables...but my favorite is the chair. Having zero prior experience in using paint or reupholstering furniture, I slowly taught myself (through trial and error) how to take a junky old chair and turn it into something worthy of using in my home. Today, I'll show you my 10 best chair makeovers, and hopefully leave you with a few ideas on how you can update any old chairs you may have laying around. This is my favorite and most recent upholstery project. I took an old $5 Goodwill piano bench transformed it into a lookalike of my favorite Ballard Designs bench. All it took was a little paint, some striped fabric, and about an hour of my time.
See the full story here.The Rocking Chair Makeover A friend of mine found an old rocker at a local estate sale and enlisted my help in painting and reupholstering it. The before and after is pretty drastic. Take a look here.The Striped Chair Makeover: This little blue striped chair was one of my favorite projects to date. My mom picked this up at a local thrift store and gave it to me to reupholster. I absolutely loved the way this chair turned out. You won't believe what it looked like before.The Stenciled Vanity Stool Project: For this project, I took an old, outdated, wooden stool and upgraded it with some pretty fabric and fringe trim. (I also stenciled and painted the vanity table!). See that story here. I found this little chair for $5 at Goodwill and totally transformed it using light blue paint (on the wood) and reupholstering the cushion with a tablecloth!! It turned out to be a great, really cheap alternative to upholstery fabric. I finished it off with silver nailheads.
I love this little chair. Months after I reupholstered it the first time, I decided to play with it again. But this time, I did something really different.....I took plain white fabric and painted blue stripes on it. Sanding the fabric (after the paint dried) with fine grit sandpaper was all it took to make this chair soft and comfy. See the full tutorial here.Green & White Trellis Chair This little chair is one of my favorite chair projects. The Ballard Designs Knock Off Chair: I was ecstatic to find this chair at a thrift store for just a few bucks. Especially when I came home and saw the exact same chair in a Ballard Designs catalog for $400! I gave this chair the same upholstery treatment as I did the last one, only this time paired with a cute striped pillow! The Drop Cloth Chair Basically, I decided to follow the massive trend of dropcloth upholstery on this chair. And I fell in love. Soon See the full story of this chair here. Okay, so this one isn't a chair.
But, I love it so much that I'm including it anyways. To see how I upholstered my headboard with a dropcloth, visit this post. Follow my blog with Follow my blog on Subscribe to LiveLoveDIY with email!While trying (and I mean trying… or in honest truth, actually secretly adding while trying..to work through my stash of projects, I finally decided to empty my brain of the plans I had to create a unique piece. Enter in this vintage Bentwood shabby chic rocking chair. For some reason, the moment I got this chair, I kept seeing a cross-stitch loom in the caning. And, of course, it needed to be filled with some sort of shabby type design. Since I hadn’t done a shabby piece in a while (I’ve been a modern vibe for a bit), I thought now was the perfect time. Especially because our weather is lacking and I’m suffering from cabin fever!! Just picture me on my desk chair next to the rocker, half-kinked over trying to reach the back with needle and yarn. My back and neck were killing me.
I honestly didn’t notice too much because I was having fun! I must say that even though this chair was available in my shop, (SOLD) I would be perfectly happy to keep it because my kids and I used it for a while before working on it and it is oh so comfortable! It has the most wonderful rocking gait – long and smooth. See more makeovers like this shabby chic rocking chair: This site utilizes cookies to offer you the best experience possible. more information Got it!The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this.So broken cane chairs are super easy to find while thrifting right? Do you want to learn how to take an old broken chair and update it into something modern and amazing? Lots of times I will see a pair that has one that is in perfect condition and the other one will look like it lived at Freddy Kruger’s house.
I have been on the hunt for one that was shredded for months and of course I could only find perfectly fine ones… Anyways when I finally found this one I was SOOOO excited! I mean how do these things happen? First what you need to do is take off all of your upholstery. If the cushion is not immediately removable don’t worry there are screws underneath the back fabric under the chair. This welting was stapled to the chair which makes for less sewing which I love! Next its time to take all of the caning off. There is a long skinny piece that finishes it off and covers the staples that you will need to take off first. Then you will need to pull out the staples that hold the caning in. This is a very messy removal so I was glad that I did it outside. Also somehow I don’t have a pic of the chair after the caning removal…not quite sure how that happened! If you are going to paint this is the time to do so! On the Epic Room Makeover chair I painted it Krylon’s Emerald Green.
It turned out the perfect shade of bright green. Now for the really fun part. I used black stripe upholstery webbing for the sides. You can get red stripe anywhere from Joann’s to Walmart but to get the black stripe you will need to get it from an upholstery supplier. Start out by stapling strips of it vertically on your chair. Secure the top of it well but only put one staple in the bottom. (I tried it with the ends loose and it was easier to weave when the bottom is secure) When you are stapling on the top make sure that it is as close to the groove as possible. I did mine right below it. Then you are going to start weaving pieces horizontally. Start on the BACK of the chair. Secure with 3-4 staples. Tack the end with ONE staple below the groove. On my second row I had to work in another vertical piece but it had to be woven and stapled one row at a time. See how I had to staple it under row 2 and staple it over row 3? Once all of your rows are woven take you stapler and secure all of your webbing.
Make sure you do this neatly and as close to your groove as possible because if the staples are too low they wont be covered by the nail head trim. Then I took a rotary cutter and rolled it inside the groove to trim all the excess. Up next is the upholstery. Take your cushions apart. Use your cushion fabric as a template so you know where to cut. I ALWAYS cut it extra big cause you can trim it off. And when you are tufting you need extra fabric. Then I took my cushion and marked where the tufting buttons are supposed to go. I had buttons covered at an upholstery shop (cause it is right down the street from my parents house and it was WAYYYY easier than doing it myself.) Most shops will charge you around $.40 a button. The buttons I used are like giant brads. You insert them through your fabric and cushion and then spread apart the metal prongs. As you are doing it make sure its lining up right and tufting it with the same pressure. Then you are going to put the wooden frame under your cushion and staple the fabric to it.
When you take the top cushion apart you will notice that there are 2 parts. The actual cushion and then a back piece that makes it so you cant see the back of the cushion. Start with this part first. When you are stapling make sure your fabric is extra tight and smooth. When you have it stapled trim the extra. When you are stapling your cushion on make sure that you shape the fabric around it before you staple. See how the sides have the fabric wrapped around it a little? Trim it as close as you can, it will give you a much cleaner finished piece. One of the cutest thing about this chair is the nailhead trim. I used the cheater version…don’t hate me. It is a long continuous piece. I bought it from DIY upholstery supply. See the one with the hole? You put an actual nailhead in there… so instead of nailing every single nailhead in you are only nailing in every 5!! Saves SOO much time and its always straight! Can you tell which ones are the “fakes”?