Weekend Recap: Camila vs. the chair!
I have serious addition for collecting vintage chairs. I can never seem to pass them up when I visit my favorite thrift stores. The main problem with this addition is that my garage and basement is overflowing with chairs that need a whole bunch of TLC.
For the past couple of months these chairs have been seating in my living room:
It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do. Originally I wanted to leave them in their current wood state and use a dark pink fabric for the seats. After I painted the walls pink I realized I needed to tone down some of the brighter pinks in the room to make sure Jon didn’t think the room was too girlie. We both decided this weekend that they would go high-gloss black and we would cover them with some remnant pieces of Chiang Mai dragon in alabaster.
In the past the only type of reupholstery that I have tackled is simple chair recovering. You know the seat cushion screws off, you sometimes replace the batting and than add new fabric, staple away and then screw back into place.
These chairs are a bit different. I had to go around with a pair of pliers and remove all of the piping and tacks:
There a lot of teeny tacks along the way! They were going everywhere during the removal. Once the piping was off I was able to remove the fabric to use it as a template for my new fabric and remove the batting, which is looking a bit beat. It will have to be replaced.
After the removal of fabric they went off for a new coat of jet black paint:
They still need another coat so I will doing that today and then some wipe on high gloss poly!
Totally terrified to tackle the seats. Anyone have any words of wisdom? Do you think it’s okay to use a staple gun to attach everything? I didn’t find one staple on this chair just little teeny nails.
Any suggestions would be appreciated. Progress pics will follow!
P.S: Twitter and old blog that was receiving this blogs new feed is still not under my control. Totally upsetting, but I’m still on it trying to get this all resolved.
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My living room is one of the rooms that evolved drastically from when we first moved one. Originally I painted the walls chocolate brown and did accents of white, blue and orange. That lasted maybe 2 years.
Our dining room sat empty for months. Okay maybe it was empty for just a handful of weeks and then we couldn’t take it anymore and put in a folding table and plastic outdoor chairs, but in my mind that was still empty.
On the main floor of our house we have a Florida room. Being that it’s a Florida room it is a considered a 3 season room, because there is no heat in the room. The previous owners used it as an indoor patio with outdoor furniture and it looked like this when we moved in.
I think staples would be fine placed where the previous nails were used. Can’t wait to see them completed. Love the fabric!
i’m going through this with a high back chair from goodwill!!!! i took out staples and nails from my chair which was SUCH a pain! home depot had a staple gun that also used tiny nails…i’m attempting the recover soon (and i need new batting too). so far, you are doing all the things i am…using the old fabric for a template but i’m sort of at a loss for the next steps too! i think i’ll do the fabric first and see where i end up…..
Oh a staple gun that uses tiny nails too! Woo hoo! Wonder what the technical name is for tiny nails?
please keep us posted! I have identical chairs that were my grandpas Im trying to convince my dad he can do himself! lol
You can totally staple them in! That’s how I have done it with my chair projects, and then you just have to cover up the staples with the piping and some hot glue. Can’t wait to see how they come out!
I have similar chairs which I recovered. The only problem I had was getting the trim to cover the staples neatly. I used fabric glue on the first chair and some of it bled through the trim. I would recommend using one of those kind of boring woven trims that you get at Joann’s first- they seem the most forgiving. I tried to use bias tape (b/c it was the color I wanted) but it was very hard to get to look right. I also tried nailhead, but I couldn’t find the stuff on the roll and I couldn’t get the individual tacks lined up correctly and it looked awful. Good luck!
Wow, I think they’re going to turn out great. I really like the idea of the gimp. I think it’s probably the easiest solution to cover the staples.
Tiny nails= brads
YES!! brads!! thank you i couldn’t think of it. haha
I have an almost identical chair that I rescued from the dumpster. I used staples to recover the seat and added the piping with tiny nails. I also used nailhead trim to seal up the edges, but went back to the tiny nails because the nailhead didn’t look right with the completed chair. Good luck!
Oh no! So annoying about the blog.
I think the chairs will look great. No advice… I’ve only done standard chairs too.
My staple gun can do staples and brad nails, which is what I think you are looking for. It cost about $25 and has been great! The black on the chairs looks awesome and I think the combo will just pop with the walls. On a side note, which spray paint did you use or did you use a paint sprayer?
I’m also wondering what type of paint you used for this project? My parents have identical chairs from my grandma that they are wondering how to revamp.
I am in the same boat. I have recovered most of my chair {it had arms to go around} and now I am trying to figure out how to cover the back. Hmmm…maybe nailhead trim? I am learning along the way. Off to check out Amy’s blog!
Holy smokes!!! those are going to be STUNNING!! (imagine me singing this Oprah style) The black with the fabric…against your pink walls!!???!!! Can’t wait.
And thanks so much for popping by my blog today! Did you also notice I finally finished the window pelmet/curtain in my daughter’s room that I pestered you about last year?!? 😉
Oh, and I’m going to need the deets on the high gloss wipe on poly…I think my new black mantel wants to shine!
Can’t wait to see the finished product!!!