My First Refurbished Chair

Caroline Sturman
Feb 10, 2016
4 min read

The vanity desk (read blog post here) was getting lonely and needed a companion to be

complete. Thus began the hunt for the perfect chair! I had to make sure it would fit underneath the vanity desk and also that it wouldn’t be too tall or too short. I found this beauty on Craigslist and bought her for $15! I loved its character and thought it would complement the vanity desk splendidly. Here's the Craigslist ad:

Why so tricky? The person who painted this chair before me had some paint runs so I had to sand down these areas to get a smooth “clean” look. The bigger challenge was that the seat was partially busted! I thought I had only signed up to repaint the chair and put new fabric on the seat, but alas, unexpected challenges are always fun…in the end…after you’ve beaten them up.

Inspiration? I tried to follow this article as closely as possible.

Chair Frame:

1. Sand. Again, I had to get rid of those paint runs…I didn’t want it to look like I did a sloppy job so I sanded those far far away. Some paint was chipping so I also removed that. After all the sanding was said and done, I wiped down the chair with a damp cloth to remove all the sanding dust.

2. Paint, Shellac, Paint. I wanted the chair to match the vanity desk so I painted it with AS Old White. Some pink bled through in some areas so I just put some shellac over it, waited for that to dry, and then applied another coat of paint.

3. Clear Wax. I used AS Clear Wax on this piece because, again, I wanted it to match the vanity desk. I put two coats on. Done!

Chair Cushion:

1. Remove Old Fabric. So obviously the very first step was to unscrew the seat from the chair frame…not worth getting its own step. Next, using pliers and a flat-head screwdriver, I pulled out the staples holding the fabric to the seat base. Underneath the fabric, I found foam, batting, and then this other stuff that reminded me of wall insulation. I didn’t like how the seat before was lumpy so I removed the funky insulation stuff and kept only the batting and foam.

2. Cut Out New Seat. Since the seat was partially busted, I went to Home Depot and picked up a Birch Plywood board that matched the thickness of the original seat. I traced the old seat onto the board and then used a jigsaw (and my husband) to cut out the new seat. This sounds difficult but it was fairly easy! Surprise! Once the seat was cut out, I sanded the edges to get them smooth.

3. Place Foam and Batting. The foam was a little too big for the seat so I trimmed it down some. The foam should fit just inside the wood base (or so I’ve been told by mentioned article). Then I placed the batting on top of the foam and flipped the batting, foam, and base over (batting side down). I positioned the batting so that I’d have enough room to pull it (on all sides) onto the wood and staple it.

4. Staple the Batting. So again, the foam is in between the base and the batting…and the batting is face down. I used a staple gun to first staple the batting on all the sides first (leave the corners for last!). And I wanted this to be pretty tight so the shape was consistent with the shape of the base. Now…the corners…if you read the article I posted above, you want to aim for a “butterfly” corner. So I first took the corner piece of batting and pulled it toward the center of the base and then pulled the remaining corner sides in and stapled. I definitely struggled with this so the best advice is to be patient and not to staple until it’s precisely how you want it.

5. Fabric Time!* I flipped over the seat and laid the fabric on top of the batting. I wanted first to make sure the pattern was in the right position before cutting the fabric. If you don’t have patterned fabric then move onward…The fabric should be 3-4 inches wider than the edges of the base so that there’s plenty of room to tug and staple. Once this was all set up, I flipped the seat back over (fabric side down) and began stapling the edges first (just like with the batting). Now I tugged some, but not too much or else I’d start seeing dents in the side of the seat. I did the corners like “butterfly” corners and Voilà! the seat is complete!

6. New Seat, Meet New Chair. The last step was to reunite the seat and chair frame. I kept the old screws and just screwed the seat back in. Done!

Refurbishing a chair was not as difficult as I thought it’d be! To date, I have two more chairs in my possession so I see some more staple-gunning in my future. Oh boy!

To check out how I fixed up the vanity desk that went with this adorable chair, click here!

*Fabric matching tip! – If you’ve ever been in Jo-Ann’s Fabric and Craft Stores, you know they can be overwhelming. Many options is a mixed blessing! To match the AS Louis Blue that I’d be using on the vanity desk, I took one of the painted and waxed hardware pieces with me that were painted AS Louis Blue. Now the piece you’re taking can be a little piece of wood or whatever that is painted the color you’re trying to match. The critical thing is that your sample piece is waxed! Wax will darken the color slightly so you’ll get a better match. I felt no shame in holding up my little knob to every piece of blue fabric in there!