Drab to Fab- Garage Sale Chairs
- Aug 21, 2017
- 6 min read
Here they are, my garage sale find. Four dining room chairs for $20 and by looking at them you can see why. Not only are they stained but they are vinyl. You know the plastic that grandma kept on her couch well these have the same lovely feel when sitting on them. No one and I mean no one want vinyl dining room chairs, for many reasons, 1-you get swamp butt, 2-if you have short or exposed legs you now have red marks, 3-it can create quite an embarrassing sound when you stand up. Don't fret we have you covered (literally), follow this guide and SASHSAM! You'll have drab to fab custom dining room chairs.
First things first, find a look that you want to achieve, this look can be found by visiting our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/sashsam1213) or our Pinterest page both of which are linked at the top of this page, or simply asking us for our suggestions!
Also here is a quite list of what we use and recommend just click and it will take you there:
Fabric- 10 yards- please shop around on this, there are deals everywhere!
Scissors-I'm pretty sure every household has these
Hot glue gun-May not be needed if nails are present
Once you have picked out a similar or even exact look, now is time to pick out your colors.
In my case, I used white spray pain with primer (no, I did not sand these chairs prior to using) This is the paint I like here.
For this project I chose white, however, that paint comes in a ZILLION colors so use your creative side!!!
Next Chose your fabric, fabric sometimes will affect which color you use on the chair so feel free to interchange these first two steps. Sometimes its easier to find a fabric then match the chairs to that or vice versa. JoAnn Fabrics, Walmart, and even AMAZON sells fabric. If picking out fabric scares you, we here at SASHSAM, recommend going neutral like this fabric HERE!
Now the fun begins.
Just to remind you these are the front and back of my chairs prior.
Ok to for this part, you will need a flat head screwdriver and a Phillips screwdriver, THAT IS IT!!
The backs on my chairs were super easy to get off, stick the flat head screw driver behind the cushion and open like you open a paint can. Do not worry about ruining the fabric; why you ask, BECAUSE YOUR COVERING IT! SASHSAM! As you pull these off there may be upholstery nails already in place, if so keep them because it will create one less step at the end for you! just be careful not to poke holes in anything including yourself, or children!
Next go for the bottoms, almost always there are going to be at least two screws, in the bottom of a chair, they may be flat head or phillips, regardless unscrew and also feel free to use power tools (insert Tim Allen's growl)!
Here is what you chair will look like after.
Ugly
hairy
nasty
but
soon
to be
FAB!
This next step, it up to you, base it off of which part you are most excited to see finished! For me, I am a seamstress, so I was all pumped about the fabric and cushions therefore I did the cushions first. So I will start there.
For the cushions. To be safe allow two and a half (2.5) yards of fabric for each chair, (so I had 4 chairs, which has two cushions, each chair 2.5 yards, total fabric 10 yards! I totally used a calculated to make sure that was right) You may have more than need but it better to have extra in case a mistake or rip happens!
Take your fabric, and lay each cushion face down ugly part to ugly part. Meaning, if you fabric has a back side have that facing toward you with pretty side on the ground. Once that is done, simply cut your fabric around the chair at least two inches out, if your nervous go ahead and cut a little more because it will not effect your look.
For this step you will need a staple gun (heres the one I use), I use heavy duty, however some chairs wont need that. Wrap the fabric around the edge of you cushion, with mine I had stripes on them so I picked the center stripe and stapled that first at the top then bottom. Then finish stapling the top, then pull extra hard and staple bottom, and lastly finish sides!
Repeat these steps for the bottoms and backs of each chair.
Let me insert a small side note here, in this specific incident I did not remove the old upholstery, I washed it off and covered. I have in fact ripped upholstery off and redone chairs and couches that is not a quick process. However, I will post my next one, so keep following us!
Ok, so here is my finished backs and bottoms!
I have a crazy color palette that I chose, and as you can see I have a lot of wood in my house, so these chairs I like to call my personality piece and a pop of color in my house!
You will also notice I did not cover the back side of the chairs.
So I attached some fabric directly to the chair with my handy staple gun. In this step, drape fabric over the back of the chair and staple around the edge then cut excess fabric. it will look like this:
Now, if you were my sister, this next step would be your favorite, not for me. Simply because I get paint EVERYWHERE. Doorknobs, toes, clothes nothing stays clean, and just to prove a point, I now have a large gray circle painted on my garage floor from spilled paint. So lucky for my husband, we now have to refinish the garage floor.. Anyways back to the chairs.
If you can please do this outside or in your garage as we are using spray paint and it travels and it travels and will land on anything including your child annnnnddd your husbands car, luckily he doesn't read this. GIVE your self some space!
As a reminder here is our chair.
The fuzz that is around the back is from the layer of foam that was there when I pulled it off. Cut this off!
I like to wipe down any piece of furniture I am painting to make sure I am not inviting cobwebs or hairs to stay with my piece for all of time.
There is no method to my madness here, just evenly spray the whole chair, every spot and nook and cranny, just spray!
As, you can see I forgot to cut the fuzz of this one and welp, it didn't matter. I did two coats of paint on here with required 4 cans of spray paint.
Please, please let the paint dry because doing anything with these chairs because you may end up getting paint on the new fabric and that my friends will cause you to lose your shit! Because then you have to tear off your awesome new fabric and redo the last step which is quite frustrating and also why I recommended purchased a little bit more fabric (speaking from experience can you tell?)
Ok, here is the finished painted chair.
Lets all celebrate the hideous picture my 5 year old took for me during this project!
You may be thinking, why does she have gray paint? Whelp, you see what had happened was I had to run to the store for more spray paint, and thankfully the store had fantastic merchandising strategies for suckers like me and placed a new gray stain next to the spray paint I was looking at. Cue light bulb, and now I am the proud new owner of gray stain, which is going to go over the white to give my chairs a vintage, rustic less bright white look. (let me just say I have used this stain 10 times since I bought it and on lots of projects including my garage floor, hahah). Buy it just to have it seriously!!!
The next step is not planned nor needed depending on the look you want, it involves my surprise purchase of the stain. Its a simple step, brush stain on, wipe off with cloth to the look you like.
Here's the staining after product.
Simple,
Easy
Perfectly imperfect!
Again Please please please let the paint dry!
Once you are sure it is dry you can start putting your chairs back together. I did my bottoms first because I mismatched my backs and bottoms. Again, you don't have to it is just my quirky personality!
So, grab your screw drivers and attach the bottoms and SASHSAM! Almost done.
Lastly do the backs, each chair will be different on how they were originally attached, I was able to use existing nails on two of my chairs, the other two I had to use hot glue beads, rest assured either will work to put the chairs back together.
Here is our finished product:
SashSam you did it!
Often time there are quite a few variables with the different furniture, so feel free to ask us some questions, on here, Facebook, or Pinterest. We will be glad to walk you through a crisis!
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