His/Hers Chair Makeover

These chair makeovers were done for the November Fab Furniture Flippin Contest! Our awesome sponsor was Minted, who donated the fabric for the chair recovery. They have the best handprinted fabric, so I was thrilled to get a chance to work with them!
Here is a shot of the finished product! These actually took a lot less work than I thought they would and I figured out how to recover them without using my sewing machine!
I found these chairs along a road by my house and since I can't pass up free furniture, I had the kids put them in my garage. I needed two chairs for our upstairs school area, and figured these would be great once they were recovered.
After sanding, priming and painting the arms and legs, I folded and stapled the material around the bottom cushion. I wrapped the material around the top cushion like I would for a present, stapling where the material would meet and then gluing trim over the staples. I was so happy to not have to sew anything!
I really like some of the detail these chairs had, like the streamlined arms and the round black circles that the screws add.
I'm really happy with the way these chairs turned out! They were also free to me! Office chairs are typically inexpensive at thrift stores and (as you now know), pretty easy to recover! A big thanks to Minted and the Fab Furniture Flippin team for a great contest!
Creatively Living
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
Go
Frequently asked questions
Have a question about this project?
3 of 5 questions
  • Lina Lina on Nov 22, 2015
    I don't know if this would work but, if you rounded the edges a bit, would they, could they be rockers?
  • Betty Betty on Jun 24, 2016
    Free is awesome! What a great transformation! Did you have to use outdoor fabric?
  • Debtroup Debtroup on Jan 04, 2017
    Did you use a glue gun for the trim? What kind of glue? Deb
Comments
Join the conversation
2 of 60 comments
  • Noni Noni on Aug 11, 2019

    I also found two chairs like these along the roadside and managed to load them into my sedan. I've deconstructed them down to the wood as the seats and backs were far beyond keeping. The wood for the backs in bowed, so I may need a second pair of hands to help when I start on them. This isn't a style that I like but the frames were so sound and in perfect condition that I'm just going to try to turn them into something that I do like with fabric and trim choices. You've given me the inspiration to actually get on this!

  • Cj Cj on Sep 12, 2020

    Very great idea. One man's trash is another man's treasure.

Next