Making a Dining Chair less formal

I have some amazing friends that I absolutely treasure.  I really do. Kind, loyal and giving. Friends who have incredible skills, careers and hobbies. But…… not too many in the area of revamping furniture….particularly when it comes to making a dining chair less formal. 

So when my good pal asked me my advice on how to to go about making a dining chair less formal, and into something more casual and more in line with her style , I chuckled and then paused……. cause I knew exactly where the convo was headed. See, my dear sweet friend was asking the question on making a dining chair less formal, so that she would know how long it would take me to transform her formal chairs into something more casual.  If you are the only diy’er in your circle of multi talented friends that have no clue how to paint, sand and recover seat cushions,  you totally get this…. right?

Making a dining chair less formal steps:

So this was the chair ( above pic).The chair  ( circa 1980’s) was in great shape because it sat around a table that didn’t get much use. My first suggestion, that I of course would be executing, was to change the fabric on the seat.  Although not my first choice for a seat fabric ( only because of how it would feel and wear) , I suggested that I recover the seat in some burlap coffee sacks that I had no use for, she loved that idea.  I believe I paid about .75 a piece for these sacks at Round Top years ago but you can find similar ones here.

Since she preferred black over the original brown color,  we I needed to paint the chair. So I took the seat off, roughed up the chair with a medium grit sanding block and applied 2 coats of black paint with my paint sprayer. For furniture projects I use a sprayer  similar to this.

Since she’s got a rustic kinda vibe going on in the room where the chairs will reside, I suggested that I slightly distress the wood on the the chair so just a bit of the brown is peeking through. Naturally, she agreed.

When the distressing was finished, the seat was put together by stapling the fabric to the underside of the chair cushion. I used my electric stapler to do that. I use this one. I would suggest an electric stapler for all of your reupholstered projects. It makes the process so much easier. Once that was done, the seat was secured back to the chair frame and in an instant…..casual dining chair.

Needless to say…my pal is sitting happy.

Oh, how I love my multi talented friends that have no clue how to paint, sand and recover seat cushions…but they sure know how to pick amazing pals.

Click here to see more of my furniture transformations.

grateful

for my pals

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