A few months ago, I decided it was time to upgrade my desk chair. I had been using a folding chair with a cushion squished on the top, and it worked ok, but it wasn’t the most comfortable after sitting for a while. In an effort to be both environmentally friendly and frugal, I decided to find an old chair to give a make-over. I had seen similar furniture transformations on a few of the home decor blogs I read, and I felt I could handle this sort of project.
I found this chair at University property disposition, where all office-related furniture and equipment go to be sold when the University is done with it. The chair cost me around $10, and I chose it for two reasons: The wood frame looked like it would be easy to sand and spray paint, and the large cushion area would be perfect for recovering with one of my favorite fabrics. It’s very important to me to reuse or recycle items when possible, and furniture seems to be one area where it’s easy to find a piece in decent shape and spiff it up with a little work.
For the chair cover, I used one of my favorite prints from Heather Bailey’s line of Nicey Jane fabrics– the lindy leaf in red. I loved the way the vertical lines of leaves looked running down the chair. I removed the cushion from the chair, and then sanded all the exposed wood. I spray painted it with 2 coats of white spray paint, and I recovered the cushion in the lindy leaf fabric. Once the chair had plenty of time to dry, I screwed the cushion back into the chair frame, and it was ready to go!
(Simon likes to keep an eye on things)
It’s often easy, fun, and cost effective to think about repurposing or upcycling an item rather than buying new. For this project, I spent $10 on the chair, about $10 on a yard of fabric, and $5 on paint. A $25 total isn’t too bad for a “new” chair!
Looks beautiful! And $25 is great. 🙂