Dish Towel / Tea Towel Chair Upcycle

I'm a Brit and we call dish towels, tea towels. That might have something to do with the amount of tea we drink!

Anyway, I have quite a collection of dish towels. I like to support independent shops and designers in a small way by buying one of their colourful tea/dish towels.

I had these dining chairs that needed revamping. They were comfy and foldable so I wanted to hang on to them.

I unscrewed the seat pad and painted the frames with black chalk paint. And when that was dried I then added two coats of matt varnish.

I lay my dish towel over the seat pad to make sure it was big enough to cover it.

If it is a bit small or a little tight you can unpick the hem of the dish towel to give you a few more centimetres.

Next, I lay the seat pad face down onto the dish towel and cut away any excess fabric.

Then starting in the middle I wrapped the dish towel around the seat and stapled it to the back of the pad. With an electric staple gun, this is very easy to do. Pull the fabric tight as you staple.

Fold in the dish towel at the corners to make a neat finish. Then staple the fabric all the way around. You can't have too many staples, I space mine out at about 5mm between each one.

Next, spray the dish towel with a fabric protector and then screw it back onto the painted chair frame.

I love how the chair turned out. I do have a thing about maps.

For the other chair, I used a funky dish towel I bought from a fabric designer with a tropical print. (more photos and details on the blog link in bio at the end).

This upcycle is so easy to do, you could update your chairs for the holidays with themed dish towels. I think this would work really well for Christmas.

I upcycled another two of these chairs with a funky hexagon denim patchwork made from old jeans (see here).