DIY Chair Project

This is probably the most difficult project I've done to date. It was a collaborative effort between myself, my gran, and grandad. I could not have seen my vision through without the knowledge and resources they were able to provide along the way. 

Last summer I purchased this chair off of a facebook garage sale from a photographer who used it for props. I paid $40 for it and have this as my only true, "before" picture. 

It looks pretty clean and has good lighting, but this was a dingy chair. It was perfect for the project I had pinned online a very long time ago. I was finally able to start and finish it! 

 

Looks pretty good right?! Not as good of quality as the photographer that sold it to me, but trust me it looks a lot better! There were lots of mistakes made along the way, but a fun adventure. 

My sister and I took out most of the nailhead trim upon receiving the chair. Once we started taking out the upholstery, we were shocked to find that the seat was constructed with old foam, STRAW, and Copper springs that were died together and held up by the burlap straps seen in the before picture. 

We thought the hard part was going to be getting all of the nails and staples out of this very old, yet very well constructed chair. Definitely wrong. Sanding and painting was next. My Gran has a stash of sample paints that she buys for cheap, and she had already told me that she had a pale gray color. Sweet! Then, my wonderful grandad was able to cut out the perfect piece of plywood for me to use as my seat. There was no way I was going to be able to stuff straw back into that chair!

 

We spent a long time trying to figure out which kind of foam to use, how much to use, and how comfortable this chair really needs to be. We had cut open an old couch cushion my gran had and used that foam, but at one point I had glued foam around the edged, stuffed it with the couch foam, and then wrapped that with egg crate foam. We were starting to worry that I didn't have enough fabric, and were really starting to stress out. We had already cut the fabric, and my gran was wanting to sew pieces on to it... uhmmm NO. I decided that we were letting this foam boss us around too much, and that this was a decorative piece, not a lounge chair. We downsized on the foam, and it turned out okay! 

Notice the bulk in this photo.. that's not how it turned out in the end. 

We got the seat situated finally, and then started on the "back" section. This is where I learned how to use a nail gun attached to air compressor. It was lots of fun. There were two downsides here though. 

#1. The fabric I bought was in the home decor section, but it was more than likely intended for curtains, not a chair. That said, the fabric would pull and the nail gun tore it at times. 

#2. There wasn't a lot of wood down the sides of the chair back. There were many times the nail gun got too close and split the wood. Gran and I freaked out every time, but Grandad was able to fix it and make it look like new again, every time. He is a miracle worker!

 

We put the back insert on the chair and then used the nail gun on the top and bottom of the fabric to cover the insert, and then used glue down the side. We weren't about to split the wood with the fabric and insert on it! 

The final touch to this piece was putting new nail head trip around the perimeter of the seat and back. The wood of this chair was very hard, and we went through a whole box of nailhead trim because the nails kept bending. We started using a nail to start the hole, and then hammered in the nailhead piece. At the rate we were going.. we knew we would be working on this chair FOREVER, Grandad had a better way of course. Enter, the second power tool I learned how to use: The electric drill. I would drill the hole, stick the nailhead in and 3 taps it was done. We were moving and grooving with this method. 

 

There were a few times where I broke the bit of the drill, so my grandad would have to come in and fix it or give me a new one. There were also some areas that the drill made me nervous, so we used an old DART as a punch to be more precise with our nail head. It was more effective than a nail. At this point, I had been at my grandparents house for 3 days, and we were out of nail head trim. I went back to Frisco for a few days bought 5 more boxes of nailheads, and went back with my mom to finish off the seat.

My grandpa was able to get the nail head around this part of the chair with ease. He is seriously amazing. 

The seat didn't take nearly as long to finish the nail head trim. We did have to touch up paint, but over all I think it turned out well! My gran wanted to "distress" the chair with dark gray paint to bring out the detail, but I was against it. If it's going to be distressed I would have rather had it natural. I like the matte done of the gray with the fun fabric.