That Damn Chair - A Remodeling Story

Have you ever had a project that seemed simple and straightforward, and then it turned into this teeming monster that wants to thwart you at every turn?

Yea. Me too. 

Those projects, ugh. Those projects are the ones that make you want to throw a tantrum. 

This chair was like that. It should've been a straightforward job. Remove old crappy upholstery. Clean up the wood. Paint the wood. Add new foam to seat. Cover new foam and existing foam with batting. Add new fabric. Finish off with trim, and VOILA! A brand new old chair. 

If only it'd been that straightforward. 

I picked up this chair ages ago with the intention of revamping it, but it wasn't until I needed a better/prettier chair for my computer desk that I was motivated to actually do it. After moving my desk into the living room, I didn't like seeing one of our plain old kitchen chairs at the desk, and new that "Throne," as we'd come to call it, would be perfect. Except it was ugly. Puce velvet upholstery with walnut finished wood. Yuck. Good bones, but yuck. So there starts my tale of how this chair turned into such a project.

Now to be fair and honest, the trouble didn't begin until after I got my pretty computer throne painted and was starting on reupholstering the back of the chair, but let me start at the beginning. 

After removing all of the old upholstery, I wiped her down with a solution of warm water and vinegar and got off some really gross gunk. I decided that I'd paint the chair the same color as my laptop desk, which you can read about {HERE}. The color is chocolate raspberry and it's by Valspar. I picked up a sample size and then turned it into chalk paint, using {THIS} recipe. After two coats, the chair was ready for the fabric.

So the chair is probably ~40 years old. There's a groove where all of the fabric on the back was stapled into and then finished off with welting. Don't you know, I don't have a stapler that fits in that groove? I went to Lowe's to buy an electric stapler that looked like it had the extended nose I needed to fit inside the groove, but it didn't. It was a dirty, little, misleading stapler. It got returned posthaste. 

So then it was on to Plan B, just staple the fabric inside the small edge of wood between the edge of the back opening and the groove. No, go. The wood splintered and generally didn't like staples trying to be shoved into that area. 

Plan C emerged with me altering the plan and the look of the chair so that I could staple the fabric up near the decorative carvings on the chair. This would extend the upholstered area of the chair's back, but it would still look good and solve my stapling dilemma. Until I ran out of staples. I check the box and the box was empty. Of course, it was. Luckily (?) the box wasn't empty, it had just been emptied into the drawer in the toolbox. I have staples again! I finished stapling the back fabric of the chair, and it's looking pretty good. 

I couldn't find new 1/2" foam for the back cushion, so I took the foam that was on the chair and sandwiched it between some batting I had. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. The seat cushion needed to be replaced. The foam fell apart if you looked sideways at it, so a quick trip to the new Hobby Lobby in town garnered me some nice 2"x 22"x22" foam, that I then cut down to size. I traced the plywood seat bottom and cut ever so carefully around the edges.  Then I wrapped the top of that sucker in more batting. 

I spray my back cushion with a bit of spray adhesive and line it up against the fabric I'd already stapled and glue it in place. I wasn't going to be adding the decorative buttons and didn't want my foam or batting moving around. I probably didn't need to do this, but better safe than sorry. Then it was time to staple the front of the back cushion on. That actually went pretty smooth, other than occasionally putting a staple on top of another staple which worked out oh so well.

I get the back of the chair upholstered and then move onto the seat cushion. Fairly straightforward. I did buy some pretty slick looking metallic silver cording and start to edge the cushion in it and decide that I don't actually like the look on the seat, so I remove everything I'd just stitched down, and sew up the cushion. I ended up tracing the plywood seat bottom on the wrong side of my fabric and added a 1/2" seam allowance all the way around. Then I cut a 3" strip of fabric for the side of my cushion, and lined up the stripes in the back, and stitched the sides to the top of the cushion. I clipped the side fabric to my stitching at the corners and around the curves. In hindsight, I should've given myself more fabric on the edges just to make pulling it around the seat cushion easier, but it all worked out in the end. 

I glued on the silver metallic cording to the back of the chair and hated it. Unfortunately, when I was removing the trim, the glue did a bit of damage to both the chair and the fabric. I needed to fix what I'd just destroyed, only this time I'm out of staples. I go to Lowe's and buy the staples that fit my stapler, only they don't fit. What the hell? My stapler takes 1/4" staples. I bought 1/4" staples, but my staple gun won't fire the staples. WHAT THE HELL!? So I take out the staples, throw a small, angry tantrum, make myself a cup of coffee and head back out to the toolbox praying to find more staples. My prayers were answered. I found just enough staples to fix the back of the chair again. 

Then it's back to Hobby Lobby to find more trim. I end up finding a really nice braid that's on the wider side, which was needed to hide some of the more awful damage. The downside to wider braid is fitting into the tight corners of the chair back, but I'll take tight corners over showing ripped fabric, and as I learned hot glue is no joke when it comes to adhering stuff so I wasn't worried about the fabric giving way once I got the braid glued down. 

I finished gluing the braid and immediately loved my decision to go with a different trim. The wider, less flashy trim was perfect for the chair. Rather than competing with the bold fabric and color choice, it compliments it perfectly. A couple of touch-ups to the paint and this throne is ready for action! 

So there it is. That damn chair is done, and functioning wonderfully. What more could I ask for?

Thanks so much stopping by!