Refurbished Chair With Added Storage Under the Seat

by Angie @ Ambient Wares

The best furniture finds are free or cheap. This one only cost 50 cents and with that comes imperfections.

refurbished chair with added storage under the seat, storage ideas

I first "fixed" the broken piece on the middle back frame by cutting both sides with the jigsaw to even them up. I then sanded them and filled in some gaps the removal of those pieces made.

I actually started this project last year and had used my paint sprayer getting a few coats of primer on it only. There was bleed through and I left it at that. When we got a couple days of freakishly nice, warm weather recently, I grabbed the white spray paint and finished it up in no time. It helped with bleed through when I redid the tube TV, too.

I had tons of thrift store fabric I thought would look so pretty with the white paint. I redid the seat frame with a scrap piece of wood and used the foam as is. The original seat was too large so I focused on getting a little more spot on. Since my new seat was smaller, I also had to trim the original foam down.

I recovered the seat making sure the design was straight/centered. Since the seat cover will be removable, I also covered the underside securing with staples.

For the shelf, I measured the underside of the chair. I used a 3/16″ piece of scrap and cut along the 19″ lines and 17 1/8″ lines which were the measurements at the widest points. I’d cut along the yellow line which was closer to the actual size needed.

Once the piece was cut down to size, I mod podged fabric to the top side and painted the underside white.

Here's the shelf installed with screws into the bottom corner pieces. I covered the gap you see with some cording I made using the same fabric.

I also screwed "stoppers" into the bottom of the cushion so it wouldn't move around.

Now you can store anything you want! If you really wanted to hide something, you could even just screw the seat down for things you don't need often. I love how it turned out and I think any kid would love it too!

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1 question

Nan16136625 on Mar 06, 2017
did you add hinges or just lift off the seat to open it

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4 of 94 comments

Michelle Binetti Merlino on Mar 19, 2017

I love it. Store a placemat in each for when the grandkids come over

2 Reply
- Angie @ Ambient Wares on Mar 19, 2017
  Wonderful idea, Michelle!
  
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Meem Kaplan on Mar 25, 2017

That is GENIOUS!!

2 Reply
- Angie @ Ambient Wares on Mar 26, 2017
  Thank you so much :)
  
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