How should I makeover these chairs?

That's right...,I'm seeking advice on how I should makeover these dirty ugly chairs?
Chalk paint? Drop cloth upholstery?
Any ideas?
  16 answers
  • Rockie Rockie on Aug 22, 2016
    You shouldn't! Sell them to me :) LOVE them!!! A makeover depends on what you want to do with them, or what your style is.
  • Ruth bremer Ruth bremer on Aug 22, 2016
    You could make a bench and depending on outside or inside what you should do.
  • Kathy Lovenburg Kathy Lovenburg on Aug 22, 2016
    I could see a lot of possibilities for these chairs! You could do off white chalk paint and use a heavy burlap looking fabric, only softer, for the seats. Use gold or silver spray paint (to use with a vanity or desk in a bedroom--girly, princess-like, cover seat with a contemporary style fabric). Spray paint with oil rubbed bronze paint, using a chic upholstery fabric to use around a small circular table and use in a breakfast nook. Oh let me loose in a paint store and fabric store!! lol
  • Teresa Teresa on Aug 22, 2016
    Its a fun project to do and easy to do too. The main thing with painting the chairs is use a good brush so you are not getting a bad finish or spray paint work well too. The fabric to recover is so little you can pick a good sturdy fabric to cover them. I loved looking at flea market challenge for ideas too. hope you post your results! Teresa
  • Cindy Cindy on Aug 23, 2016
    I'm obsessed with making benches!!
  • Nancy Quinton Nancy Quinton on Aug 23, 2016
    Chalk paint and upholstery sounds like a great idea
  • Bobbie Bobbie on Aug 23, 2016
    I plan to redo my 1930's dining set chairs over. I am going to restrain the backs in the beautiful dark they originally were and doing the seat and legs in a deep glossy black. I haven't found the right upholstery fabric yet. Can't wait to get started next spring. Good luck with your project!!
    • Elaine Elaine on Aug 23, 2016
      How about the always classic (and classy!) look of black and white toile? It never goes out of style, Bobbie.
  • Elaine Elaine on Aug 23, 2016
    Your chairs aren't ugly at all - I wish I had them! The thing to do is take your time with them. I had six chairs once that needed restaining - lots of nooks and crannies to strip then restain; it was a lot of work and I hurried through the project as quick as I could. This was years ago before the super products of today. Only you can determine the amount of work you wish to spend on them - whether to restain them or perhaps, try the popular chalk paint. As for color, again, it depends on if you want a dressy look (dark stains usually tend to look more formal) or a more casual look. You might find ideas browsing through Houzz.com. If the chairs are going in the dining room, then when you get into Houzz, type in "dining rooms", or if they're for the kitchen, then type in "kitchens".
  • F H Young F H Young on Aug 23, 2016
    Step 1: lightly sand the wood frames Step 2: vacuum and use damp cloth to remove all sawdust Step 3: Stain the chairs in a colour of your choice Step 4: When stain is dry ... varnish chair frames, you may want to use more than one coat of varnish ... be sure to let chair frames dry between each coat Step 5: Inspect chair seats if the wood on the bottom is good, skip step 6. Step 6: Use an original wood from chair seat as a pattern, place on wood of your choice and trace around seat. Repeat until you have the number of seats you need. Step 7: Cut out wood for the number of chair seats you need. Step 8: I used memory foam but you can use any type of foam you like. Cut foam about 2 inches bigger than the wood seats. Step 9: Cut upholstery fabric about 6 inches bigger than the foam. Step 10: Place fabric right side down on work surface, place foam on fabric and place wood on top Step 11: Use staple gun and bring fabric up hold firmly and staple in the middle of each side. Step 12: Next gather fabric and tightly wrap each corner ... you'll need 3 or 4 staples to make sure the fabric and foam are secure. Step 13: Place on staple on each side of the middle staple. Step 14: Place finished chair seat back on finished chair frame and secure with original or new screws. I upholstered all the seats I needed, before screwing them back on to the chair frames. Hubby gave me a hand with the cutting the wood for the seats as I have a bad back. Lifting anything heavy by myself is impossible. When gathering or folding over corners, it's much easier to have someone do the stapling, while another person holds the fabric tight. This keeps the fabric smooth, I wanted the corners to be the same as the original chairs. For me the hardest part of the chair seat was keeping the fabric smooth.
  • Natalia Natalia on Aug 24, 2016
    A while ago I had similar problem. Here is a photo of what I did with mine chairs. It was my first experience, and, as you can see, there are some things to improve, but the idea is clear. Success!
    • See 2 previous
    • Borislava Borislava on Sep 02, 2016
      Thank you :). I've seen this before, but this pattern is really something special.
  • Borislava Borislava on Aug 24, 2016
    I had a few chairs like yours, this is the one of them, maybe it'l help :). I took off all the old paint (looong and painful job :), sanded it up to 600 (very, very fine granulation), and painted it with most expensive lasur paint I could find (teak is the colour). The seat was made by professional (because it's an authentic Thonet armchair) - it's real leather, vanilla colour. Good luck :).
  • Borislava Borislava on Aug 24, 2016
    This one is less conservative :). It was in bad condition, so when I took off all the paint, I had to close all the defects - that means I couldn't use any semi-transparent paint. I sanded it, painted with common, cheap oil based color for wood, and draw a tree of life on the seat. The tree of life was drawn with Cadenca oil colors (bronze, golden etc.), and the whole seat is "immersed" in parquet lacquer (VERY durable :).
  • Lyn2398900 Lyn2398900 on Aug 25, 2016
    Don't do anything to them, just give them to me!
  • Geri Geri on Aug 31, 2016
    Lynnrohde48, you took my idea! But I did help my daughter with a set a few years back, we used a fun colorful fabric and painted the chairs 3 different colors from the fabric (6 chairs total), then highlighted with gold paint. It was a little bit "Alice in Wonderland", but they looked great with her black lacquer table.
  • Honestly, we spray painted ours and it worked out so well. Then we used about a yard and a half of fabric to recover the seats.

  • Johnavallance82 Johnavallance82 on Aug 18, 2022

    You could paint them gold?