ANYWHO! Back to the real excitement. While I've been cyberly-MIA, I refinished a chair that I bought from the St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store here in LA. I've been wanting to tackle reupholstery for a while, but it's always seemed out of my skill range, so I thought a cheap chair ($19!) with a removable seat cushion would be a fairly painless place to start. It was. Fairly. It was certainly a learning experience-- in fact, I'm still learning from it.
Take a look at it before:
Not so impressive, right? (Thrift store furniture smells AWESOME to cats. I had to lock them out of the room while I worked on this because of their insistence on rolling about on the cushion). (And yes, The Chan-Chan Man is wearing a cone-- he had an itchy back paw that he was trying to chew off. Unfortuntely, he could still chew on the foot with cone on, so we eventually took it off. It was mildly entertaining to watch him walk into the furniture, however.).
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First, I went to the hardware store and armed myself with #150 and #220 sand paper, wood primer spray paint, black glossy indoor/outdoor spray paint (shocking, I know. Me? Black Gloss Spray paint? NEVER!), and a clear gloss finishing spray. Then I borrowed a staple gun from Lizzie.
While the chair was fine structurally, it had some aesthetic shortcomings; mainly the veneers had chipped off in some places, which seemed to me to be a recipe for sweater snagging. I used Mighty Putty (LOVE MIGHTY PUTTY) to fill in the holes, then once it was dry, I sanded it down so it was smooth and even with the rest of the veneers. It made a big difference, and unless you're up close and inspecting the chair, you hardly notice the trickery.
Next, I removed the cushion and sanded the whole chair with the coarser sand paper. Then I primed the wood; once that was dry, I did a quick once-over with the #220 sand paper, then wiped it down to remove the dust, and tackled it with the black spray paint. Two coats (and two cans) later, I sprayed the clear finishing spray over the top and called it a day.
Meanwhile, I had been working on the fabric for the cushion. I stripped away the beautiful striped fabric to find some seriously sketchy batting underneath. I might have considered keeping it, but I knew Miles wouldn't sit on the chair knowing that stuff was underneath his tush, so I replaced it with 1 inch thick high density foam and about 4 layers of polyester batting, cut to approximately the size of the seat.
Next, I prepped the fabric to be silkscreened. With my fabric ink pen, I marked off the cotton in a grid of 3"x3" squares. Then, I marked which squares I wanted to have black birds and which I wanted to have purple birds. In the black bird squares, I printed them in an orderly, up-and-down manner. For the purple birds, I rotated the fabric so they were printed on an angle. I think it gives it a certain jauntiness. Look:
Once the fabric was dry and heat-set, I went about recovering the cushion. For some reason, I didn't bother looking at any instructions (I'm like my dad in that manner!). In hindsight, that was probably a mistake, because the edges were a little wavy, but I'm hoping that will go away once the chair's been sat on for a bit. If not, I can always take the fabric off and start over! Big fun. But I digress. I positioned the fabric so the birds were in optimal positions, then just started pulling it under the edge of the seat and stapling it.
So, while the finished result may be slightly imperfect (HORRORS), I think it's a vast improvement over the original, don't you?
At the beginning of the post, I mentioned that this was a learning experience. If you're interested in said lessons, here are my two cents:
1. Next time, use paint in a can, not spray paint. Spray paint may be easier, but due to the fact that I have to do all my spray painting on the roof of my apartment building and the wind factor up there, I think a paint brush application would have been more economical and provided better coverage.
2. The clear finishing spray was a big mistake! It was incredibly uneven, and it actually ended up dulling the finish in some areas instead of making it glossier. I'm thinking of either skipping it, or using a lacquer type finish (maybe also in a can).
3. Read a book, or at least some internet tutorials, on recovering the cushion. Perhaps wrapping the batting around the edges of the seat board would have eliminated the wave-factor...
In spite of these things, I'm definitely pleased with the result. I told Miles that I could imagine these chairs in a small cafe with a vintage-eclectic feel. I would take mismatched shaped chairs and refinish them in the same way with the same seat fabric (perhaps different tables would have different colored birds to add another level of visual interest.). I can also see them paired with stainless steel tables to ground them a bit and balance out the crafty factor with a dose of industrial. Yeehaw!
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