Upholstered Dining Room Chairs
2 Materials
$20
1 Day
Medium
My son recently purchased a home and was in desperate need of furniture, but was on a tight budget. I usually frequent the Goodwill for slightly used furniture, but I found these four chairs sitting "outside" the Goodwill on the sidewalk. Apparently they weren't good enough to even make it inside. They called out to me to be rescued,
Grabbed these old "velvet cushioned" chairs sitting on the sidewalk outside the Goodwill store. Although the cushioning was gone, the legs and backs were still in great shape. They just needed some love!
I then unscrewed the crumbling cushions from the chairs and started the dubious task of stripping everything off down to the wooden frame. This took me a while because this had lots of staples and the crumbling cushions made a total mess, but I was finally able to get all four cushions dismantled.
Also on the curb next to the chairs was a leather couch with perfectly good cushions. Since I knew I would need a sturdy foam for the chairs, I grabbed up a couple of the cushions from the leather couch and stuffed those in the trunk of my car as well.
Since the cushions from the leather couch were thicker than I would want for a chair, I cut them in half and shaped them to the wooden form that was on the chairs.
I then glued the foam for all four chairs with heavy duty glue (Gorilla glue) and held them down with a heavy ottoman (I gave it about an hour or two).
While the glue was drying, I took the time to give the frames a nice cleaning and also used Old English furniture polish to cover scratches and to also give them a nice polished finish.
Here I have screwed the cushions to the chair and they look brand new. Hard to believe that these chairs were set out for trash in their original state. Glad I saved them and my son has already moved them into his new home.
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2 of 29 comments
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This is amazing! I've reupholstered chairs before, but I had some that really could've used re-cushioning as well. I'll know for next time that I can do it myself. Thanks for the inspiration!
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You're quite welcome. Good luck in your future endeavors!
Frequently asked questions
Have a question about this project?
I have very similar chairs and picked up cushions from a couch. Was it hard to cover the cushions? Your corners are very neat. I don't understand how you screwed the foam cushions to the chair.
Won't you fall right through when you sit on them? Did you use to support the cushions underneath with webbing?
Trying to find fabric for my chairs that are washable ( able to spot clean) as I have grandchildren. What type of fabric would you suggest?