Repairing a wooden chair with a backrest with your own hands. Stages of restoring chairs with your own hands. DIY restoration of old chairs

An old chair inherited from your grandmother, with worn upholstery and peeling varnish, can become a pearl of the interior if you put your hands on it. To cope with this task, you need to familiarize yourself with the technology restoration work, arm yourself necessary tools and be patient. Let's consider the stages of transforming a used piece of furniture into a chic rarity, dear to the heart as a memory of loved ones.

Methods

There are different approaches for updating old furniture. Restoration is a classic approach that involves restoring the original appearance of an object with all its previous characteristics. This method is used if you need to restore a valuable piece of furniture to its original form. This assumes a fairly complex technique that will require the use of special purpose chemicals To restore the coating, carry out carpentry work to eliminate functional faults, it may be necessary to replace part of the wood or veneer.

This requires special skills and professional carpentry tools, purchasing special types of wood. Complete restoration of chairs is justified for collecting purposes or in case of damage to one of the items of an expensive set. This is a rather expensive process, so it is better to entrust it to professionals.

If for certain reasons it is impossible to contact a carpentry restoration workshop, then repairing old chairs can be done at home with your own hands.

It is necessary to begin restoration work by sequentially performing the following actions:

First, we think about the design of the future piece of furniture, how it will look in the interior, what color it should be, what needs to be altered for ease of use.
Then we disassemble the chair into its component parts, determine the degree of wear of parts and the need to replace some elements, and measure each part.
After this, we draw up an estimate for consumables according to the sizes of the chair parts, with this list we go to the store and purchase everything we need.
Finally, we replace the worn parts and the coating with varnish or paint. If the chair has retained its strength, it is enough to simply repaint it to make it new item situation. You can paint an old peeling highchair into a new one bright color and paint it with a simple pattern, which the child will be incredibly happy about.

Preparing tools

Having determined the degree of wear of structural parts, you need to stock up on the necessary tools. Let's try to figure out what is needed for repairs.

To strengthen the frame, you will have to acquire a chisel, wood glue or PVA glue, and wooden blocks to replace furniture tenons or spacers. Spikes are used to fasten frame parts.

If the legs of the chair are loose, the tenons must be removed, coated with glue and inserted into the structure, after which the elements must be fixed for several hours. At home, you can use a regular belt to tighten parts.

Chairs can be varnished, stained or painted. To remove the damaged coating, you need to sand the surface of the chair - it is not necessary to completely remove the old layer of paint or varnish, just level it. Here you will need coarse and fine sandpaper or a sanding machine. When completely changing the design, it is worth using a special composition that dissolves the paint - technical acetone.

Having prepared the frame for new painting, you need to apply a primer under the paint - usually it is gray or white. Paint and varnish materials will be required. They are selected depending on the conditions of use, whether this household item will be exposed to adverse effects from moisture, steam or sun. Instructions are included with each coloring product. After familiarizing yourself with it, choose the appropriate one.

Before varnishing, to preserve the wood, it is treated with stain, wax or oil. These furniture products come in a variety of colors to match the different colors of natural wood. After covering the frame of a wooden chair with stain of the desired color, water based A layer of varnish follows; when using a polymer-based stain, varnish coating is not necessary.

Next you have to decide what the seat finish will be. If it is a hard seat, then we paint it according to the same rules as the frame. If you have to deal with a soft seat, you need to stock up on foam rubber and fabric for upholstery. A furniture stapler with appropriately sized staples will come in handy here. The fabric can also be secured using special furniture nails and a hammer.

When working with a spring block, it may be necessary to replace the springs or the entire block. You need to ask in advance whether these materials are available for repair work or you need to change your strategy and abandon springs in favor of foam rubber.

Disassembly of the structure

The connection diagram of the chair is well known; disassembling the structure yourself is not difficult. First, the back and rear legs are unscrewed. Assembling the chair occurs in the reverse order, then all the grooves will fall into place. If the chair is mounted on glued spikes, you need to melt hot water connection points - to do this, apply a hot wet cloth several times or use a steam generator.

Detected cracks are filled with a mixture of sawdust and glue or sealed and pulled together to fix them until dry. If tenon joints are damaged, new plugs are made to replace the old ones, and tongue-and-groove fastening and gluing are used to strengthen the drawer joints. You need to drill a thin hole to the tenon and pour glue into it with a syringe, fix it until it dries. If the legs are inserted into special grooves in the bottom of the chair and the chair wobbles, then the legs are removed and top part wedged, it becomes larger and fits more tightly into the groove.

If an update occurs high chair In addition to the above, it may be necessary to replace the hinges or the rotating mechanism for transformation. Most wooden children's chairs consist of a large number of parts to ensure the safety of the child. It’s a good idea to glue them again with wood glue for strength.

When disassembling a folding chair, it is enough to remove the axial pins connecting the backrest and the seat and unscrew the seat. Chairs with a metal frame simply unscrew; for models with cast frames, only the seat and the soft part of the backrest are unscrewed for reupholstery.

The chair seat can be equipped with a spring block. The block itself does not need to be dismantled and torn from the base; if necessary, individual springs are replaced.

Recovery process step by step

So, at the first stage, our chair is disassembled, structural damage has been repaired, the old paintwork has been removed, and the actual renovation can begin.

At the second stage, apply a primer corresponding to the type of material being painted to the cleaned surface. After it dries, it should be re-treated with finer sandpaper. Then we apply the first layer of paint or varnish and after drying, check - if the base is visible, apply one or two more layers.

Each material has its own characteristics when painting. The first layer of anti-corrosion primer is applied to the frames of iron chairs, after drying the base color is applied, and if the paint is transparent, then it is applied in stages in two or three layers. When painting metal chairs, it is better to use metal enamels.

The frame of a wooden chair is initially treated with wax, applying a little product to a piece of rag and carefully rubbing it into the wood, or brushed with an oil primer. One or more layers are then applied acrylic paint. These new generation coatings are easy to use, odorless, dry quickly, and are suitable for indoor use.

To restore Viennese chairs, use a varnish coating on a wax base or primer.

For plastic chairs, painting is undesirable, since the flexibility of the material will provoke paint peeling; it is better to sew covers or pillows on them from a suitable fabric.

Finally, the last step is to reupholster the soft parts of the chair. After the old upholstery is removed, foam rubber of the required thickness is cut out to fit the shape of the seat base; it can be secured with glue. The fabric is cut out taking into account the hem allowance around the foam rubber and plywood.

Furniture stapler with reverse side The fabric is first fastened on opposite sides so that it is tightly stretched, then the corners are folded end-to-end, folded along the base and secured with staples in several places on the reverse side so that the fabric does not puff up. It is better to use fabric with a floral print or plain color. A geometric pattern requires a special arrangement of lines. The drawing may become skewed, so skill is needed here.

When reupholstering a seat with springs, batting or other dense material is first laid, then a layer of foam rubber. The fabric is cut out and attached using the same technology as with foam rubber alone, but here it is important to tighten the upholstery more tightly in order to smooth out the relief of the springs.

Assembly and finishing

When the chair frame is updated and the soft parts are covered with new upholstery, all that remains is to assemble the structure. The basic rule is to reassemble in the same order as you disassembled. The legs and backrest parts must be installed in the same grooves where they were originally, so the structure will not lose strength. The plywood on which the seat is attached is usually screwed to the frame; in Viennese chairs, glue acts as a retainer.

Knowing all the stages of restoring a chair, it is not difficult to create a stylish and unique object using finishing from an unattractive piece of furniture. Simply by painting chairs in pink, blue, pistachio colors, you can get a bright color accent interior in fusion style.

When updating old chairs, the decoupage technique is used. This operation is performed using glue, varnish and a pattern on paper based, convenient to use and napkins. The paper with the selected pattern is cut or torn into pieces, then these fragments are fixed to the frame and seat using glue, and after drying they are varnished. As a result, this piece of furniture is completely transformed and becomes an art object.

IN modern interiors designers often use one or two antique pieces. For this purpose, chairs of antique designs are required. First, they are painted with white paint, then a thin translucent layer of gold, bronze or silver paint is applied to the entire chair or its individual parts, depending on the surrounding environment and the decoration of the entire interior. The final stage becomes a layer of craquelure varnish. It creates small cracks throughout the coating, giving a luxurious touch of antiquity.

These chairs can be finished in the Empire style. The frame, painted white, is painted with gold paint along the carvings; on smooth elements, you can copy a suitable pattern with a pencil and paint according to this pattern with gold paint. In this case, the seat is covered with a shiny fabric - satin, brocade, velvet. The composition turns out to be very effective.

Almost all pieces of furniture are subject to wear and tear. Even with careful handling, time takes its toll, and the material from which this or that thing is made undergoes aging and loses its appearance, and in some cases ceases to perform its main function. In the case of chairs, the seat of the chair, that is, its upholstery, wears out first. And also the legs often suffer due to the fact that they are constantly under pressure. They can break, become loose and eventually fall off completely, causing the chair to become unusable.

This is where the need for its restoration arises, because this process will not take much time and you will not spend as much money as if you had bought a new chair. The process of restoring furniture is especially relevant if it is an expensive, old, rare item or someone’s gift that you do not want to throw away.

Restoration of chairs

You need to know that old chairs are repaired for a number of reasons, which are characterized by certain damages. This may be a minor defect in the form of erasure paint coating. Viennese chairs usually have this defect. In this case, you just need to clean the wooden surface and paint it. There are more significant damages:

breakage of wooden elements (legs, back);
upholstery wear.

When upholstery fabric wears out, a restoration process such as reupholstery is required. This is not to say that this is a very labor-intensive job, rather simple, unlike the one when you need to restore the “backbone” of a chair when it is loosened.

Old wooden chairs, stools, stools and stools can be repaired with a few tools and the necessary materials.

Tools

coarse sandpaper;
fine-grained sandpaper;
different types of screwdrivers;
stapler;
mallet and hammer;
scissors;
brush;
screwdriver;
clamps.

Material

For materials to repair wooden chairs with your own hands, you will need the following items:

Operating procedure

Repairing chairs with your own hands is not a difficult process. Many people have already gone through this and know all the nuances of how to restore an old chair with their own hands. All you need is to thoroughly study the master class on chair decoupage and other restoration techniques.

Disassembly

For starters, the chair being repaired needs to be done properly clean from dust and dirt, also using a wet cleaning with a sponge. After waiting for the surface to dry completely, you can move on to the next stage.

Before you begin directly restoring the chair, it needs to be disassembled. There are two types of disassembly: complete and incomplete. Complete disassembly includes dismantling the entire structure of the chair. Of course, this option is more complex and time-consuming, and if you choose it, you can give advice on how to do it. If the entire structure of the chair is fastened with screws, then this will not be difficult. In the case where the legs, back and all parts of the chair are held together thanks to glue poured into the grooves, you will have to make a little effort to disassemble it.

As a rule, the seat and backrest can be removed without difficulty. The difficult step in disassembly is disassembling the frame itself. Here you need to apply a certain force to knock the parts out of the grooves. For these purposes, it is best to use a mallet (rubber or wooden), since a metal hammer can easily chip the components of the chair or form dents.

Removing old glue

In any case, when knocking out parts, you will need to get rid of old dried glue (in some cases it may be epoxy resin). To do this, use a dampened sponge or some unnecessary rag. It needs to be applied to the place where two parts are attached and left for a while so that the glue or epoxy resin gets wet. After this, the parts will move away from each other quite easily.

If it is difficult to get to any place to remove the glue, you can use another method, which, by the way, is more effective. This method is based on the principle of removing glue using steam. high pressure. Most likely, most people do not have special devices that create targeted effects of hot steam under high pressure . But there is a way out of this situation too. It is enough to find a piece of rubber hose about a meter long and put it on the spout of a kettle filled with water, which is currently placed on the stove. On the hose itself, you can choose some kind of nozzle that narrows its diameter.

Recovery stages

Below we will consider restoring a chair at home with incomplete disassembly. The stages of stool restoration will be in the following order:

Inspect the coating and seal cracks if necessary.
Strengthening loose legs.
Seat restoration.
Making covers.

The last stage is optional and is performed at the request of everyone. DIY chair covers will protect the chair and make it look newer. And also due to the fact that they can be changed, there is a factor of variability in the design.

So, first of all, you need to prepare the work surface and take care of hand protection and protective clothing. To protect your hands, use rubber gloves and wear clothes that you don't mind getting dirty. If you are restoring a chair outdoors, then there must be appropriate weather conditions for this (no wind or rain). If you do this at home, you can lay oilcloth or large garbage bags on the floor under the chair.

After dismantling the seat, it needs to be rid of the old upholstery and covered with new one. Upholstery fabric can be buy at any furniture store, with a suitable pattern and color. The upholstery can be held on with glue or nailed. In the second case, you will need pliers. It is advisable to remove the old coating rather than install a new one over it. The filler should also be removed. Then you need to sand it with medium-grit sandpaper and, after wiping off the dust with a damp cloth and waiting for it to dry, coat it twice with a primer.

The interval between primer coats should ideally be 24 hours, but the manufacturer usually specifies a shorter time. The primer also has bactericidal properties, which is especially important for old furniture. Once two coats of primer have been applied, you can begin covering.

Note: You can have the seat upholstered by a special craftsman. As a rule, such services are quite cheap, especially if you provide the master with your own material for covering.

Synthetic foam rubber or batting is suitable for filler. When using batting, the number of layers is about 4, but more can be done, depending on how soft the seat you want to achieve . Batting or foam rubber it is cut strictly to the size of the seat and fixed to its surface using a furniture stapler or small nails.

The upholstery material, the so-called seat cushion, should be secured not only around the perimeter, but also in the middle. This will prevent the material from slipping during operation. Now, to cover our seat, we cut off the cape along the contour of the seat, stepping back about five centimeters from the edge. Having placed the filler, you can pull it over, securing each side with a stapler and overlapping the corners, which are also secured. The reverse (invisible side) does not need to be covered.

How to make a chair

Perhaps, the easiest way, if you have a chainsaw and an angle grinder, make it using ordinary acacia hemp or other wood with a beautiful texture. It is done as follows. A stump of suitable size is cut, the diameter of which will range from 25 to 30 cm. You select the height yourself, focusing on the one that will be comfortable for you. The height can be determined by measuring some home stool. After this, a cut is made with a chainsaw in the form of a cross, with a depth of approximately half the stump.

Then, with an ax, a small depression is made in the middle of the stump and a small amount of flammable material - gasoline or diesel fuel - is poured into it. During the combustion process, the inside of the stool will burn out; it is important to monitor this process and prevent the legs from becoming thin. The thickness of the legs should be at least five centimeters at the base and it widens towards the seat. All burnt wood is scraped off with an ax or knife and sanded using a grinder. A special attachment in the form of a brush with coarse bristles is put on it.

After cleaning the inner surface, using a grinder and a grinding disc, the edges of the legs and the seat are processed around the entire circumference . Then painting is done with stain diluted to the desired shade and, after drying, with varnish.

Stool

To make a simple stool you need very little time and a minimal set of tools. Of these you will need:

The diagram below shows with a dotted line the shape of the leg, which you need to cut out in the amount of four pieces, as well as the required dimensions for the board. The form may be different, it is shown here as an example.

Important: The base of the leg must be flat to give the stool stability.

After marking the workpiece, cut with a jigsaw strictly along the line. In the future, the resulting leg can be used as a model simply by applying it to the material, tracing and cutting. When all four legs are cut off, we begin to process them. You can clean the edges using a semicircular router, but if you don’t have one, use regular sandpaper. True, it will take a little longer. The seat of the stool requires a board of the same section in the form of a square with a side of 320 mm. The edges of the seat need to be smoothed and made semicircular. The workpiece is also cleaned on all sides using a grinding machine.

Then, when all four legs and the seat of the stool are ready, provided that they are well sanded, you can begin to connect all four legs. First, drill two holes in the top of each leg. The drill must be used with a slightly smaller diameter than the self-tapping screw, otherwise it will not hold. Then a small recess is made with a drill of a larger diameter, so that when screwing in the screw, its head is recessed and it can be safely primed in the future.

An approximate connection diagram is shown in the figure below; to do this, you need to attach one leg perpendicular to the other and connect it using self-tapping screws.

In the same way we connect the other two legs and screw them to the others. This connection is very reliable, since one leg is held in place by four screws. When all four legs are connected, we apply the entire fastened structure to the stool cover and mark its contours with a pencil in order to know where to screw the screws when connecting the seat to the legs. We make holes on the outside of the seat, not forgetting about a small hole of a larger diameter to hide the screw heads. After tightening all the screws, all that remains is to clean the places where there were connections and cover the entire surface of the stool with varnish and stain (if desired).

Cases and capes

Tools needed to make your own chair cover:

sewing machine;
scissors;
fabric and threads.

First of all, remove all marks from the chair: height, width, distance from the back to the seat, length of the legs. Alternative option to remove marks, marks may appear directly on the fabric when you apply them to the chair.

The cover itself will consist of two capes. One of them will extend from the bottom of the legs to the back and over it. Another cape covers the side of the legs. The two capes are held together by bandages made of the same material as the capes. The fabric is stitched on both sides using a sewing machine, and the headbands are sewn on by hand.

If you find that an old chair is completely worn out, do not rush to throw it away. Often old pieces of furniture bring with them pleasant memories of people and events in your family's life. And what’s the truth? Previously, furniture was made to last...

Therefore, a restored chair may well serve not only you, but also your children. Just by changing it appearance, you can return the furniture to its former attractiveness and newness. Fortunately, there are many options now. Everything will depend only on your imagination.

How to update an old chair? Pre-cleaning

To begin with, the surface of the chair needs to be clear from old covering, whatever it may be. If there is soft upholstery seats, it must first be removed. To do this, you don't necessarily need " male power" Try turning the chair upside down and you will see that the seat is attached with screws that need to be removed. To do this, you need to arm yourself with a hammer (to knock out the seat) and a screwdriver (straight or Phillips).

Now you can start removing the old coating. To do this, you can use regular “sandpaper” of different grain sizes or a sanding sponge. It is important to sand the surface of the wood well. This will help you easily apply the coating you choose later. It is worth saying right away that this work is not easy.

But it is possible to simplify the process a little by periodically moistening the surface to be treated. This way you can get rid of dust. Just don’t be alarmed by the fact that moisture makes the old varnish viscous. This is fine. After the chair has completely dried, you need to sand the entire surface well again with fine sandpaper.

How to update an old chair? Everything is in order

Now it all depends on your imagination. If you decide to varnish the surface of the chair, you need to use a colorless primer so that the texture of the wood is clearly visible through the protective layer. A layer of primer will have to be used in any case. Even if you decide to paint the chair in the future.

The fact is that paint adheres better and lasts longer if the surface is first primed.
The surface must be coated with varnish in two layers. It is important that the first coat is thoroughly dry before applying the second. The varnish can be applied with a brush or by spraying it over the surface.

The chair can be painted any color. Nowadays white furniture is considered very fashionable. And the seat upholstery can be contrasting. Nowadays there are many ways to show originality. For example, use a stencil. Let it be flowers or any other ornament.

Another way to cover the surface of a chair is beeswax balm. The surface is also pre-sanded and primed with drying oil. Then cover with a thin layer of balm using a cloth. After twelve hours, the surface is polished with a brush.

Now you can begin restoring the upholstery. The old one needs to be removed. Previously, it was attached to the seat using ordinary nails. You will also have to get rid of the foam rubber. It is necessary to cut a new one according to the old standards. The fabric must be cut with a margin for hemming. The upholstery material can be very different: like a special fabric for upholstered furniture, as well as regular linen or thick cotton. It is better to fasten the fabric with a furniture stapler. But if you don't have one, don't worry. You can use regular nails by hammering them in. It is important to remember that the material must be well stretched on all sides.

Now the seat can be inserted into its original place and fastened with screws.

Upgrade an old chair with a cover

There is another way to how to update an old chair - use a cover. It can be made from any fabric, hiding defects and imperfections without major intervention. The cover can be with a variety of frills, ruffles, bows, tassels... You can make several options. Festive and everyday options. Show your imagination! Don’t rush to throw away old furniture, try to become a designer, we are sure that you will succeed!

How to update an old chair? Photo

Sooner or later, every person needs to buy new furniture, this applies not only to large interior items, but also to chairs. But before you go to the store, you need to think carefully, because perhaps there is a lot of furniture in your home that you can update yourself and transform beyond recognition. In addition, prices in modern salons and markets are often inflated. For example, restoring chairs with your own hands is an ideal way out of this situation. Today we will tell you how to restore old furniture and how to proceed step by step to achieve a good result.

The main advantages of furniture restoration

This option for restoring interior items has many advantages. The most obvious ones include:

This process takes very little time, especially if you strictly follow the instructions.
Transforming old furniture allows you to save a lot on buying new products.
Restoring chairs allows you to get completely new, unique things that cannot be found in any other home.

Chairs, like other pieces of furniture, tend to wear out quite quickly. Even the highest quality products are subject to breakdowns and aging, especially when a person accelerates this process through his actions. This can be serious damage caused by negligence and too intense use. The seats suffer the most as they bear the maximum load.

To restore worn-out items, it is not at all necessary to have extensive experience in the field of repair and decoration. It is enough to familiarize yourself with several master classes on painting, upholstery, decoupage, decorating, and remaking old furniture, and you will succeed.

Important! This experience will certainly come in handy in the future if you decide to reupholster an old sofa or reupholster an armchair. Using this approach, you can breathe new life into any product instead of sending it to landfill.

In addition, this idea has another huge advantage: you will not only restore old chairs yourself, but will also experience maximum positive emotions from the implementation of your own creative idea.

Features of updating a chair or chair

Remember that the method you choose to restore a chair with your own hands directly depends on the nature of the damage. There are three main types of damage:

Upholstery wear.
Problems with the back, a broken leg, seat or other wooden part.
The paintwork on the wooden surface has become unusable.

Based on this, we can conclude that the repair and restoration scheme is selected depending on where on the furniture the problem arose:

Often it is enough to connect loose parts or replace a connecting part that has failed over time. This applies to tenons and grooves.
The expansion and wear of these very elements causes the chair to slowly begin to loosen and become completely unstable. In such cases, the repair consists of completely disassembling the furniture and adding a tenon. You'll have to work hard here.
If the problem concerns wear of the paintwork, then it is easier to eliminate it. If the varnish is cracked, just remove it, sand the surface and apply a new layer of paint or varnish.
Reupholstering old chairs can also be called a simple task, because you just need to replace the torn or worn fabric with new material.

Now we will consider the most popular restoration options step by step.

Step-by-step reconstruction of an old chair

Before you restore an old chair with your own hands, you should familiarize yourself with the sequence of performing this work. If this is your first time encountering this, then study the short master class that we will provide below.

Preparation

If you approach the work correctly, you can completely restore the furniture yourself, even if the upholstery is torn, the legs are loose, or the paint or varnish is completely or partially cracked.

The first step is to prepare a minimum set necessary materials and tools:

Materials: self-tapping screws, upholstery fabric, staples for staplers, foam rubber, glue for wooden furniture, varnish or paint.
Tools: hammer, screwdriver, scissors, two different screwdrivers, clamp, brush, sandpaper, stapler, small mallet.

After this, prepare the chair: clean it of dust, dirt, and wash it thoroughly.

Disassembly

Naturally, before you update an old chair with a backrest with your own hands, it must be completely disassembled. As soon as it dries, you can start working:

First of all, the back and seat are removed, only then the frame is disassembled.
When knocking out parts, use a rubber mallet to avoid damaging them. Work as carefully as possible.
If the chair is assembled with screws or tenons, then it is enough to unscrew them.
Fold all the parts carefully or mark them in some way so as not to confuse them later.
If there is old glue left somewhere, in particular epoxy glue, then apply moistened rags or sponges to these places. Any unwanted old rag will do. Let it sit on the parts until the glue is completely wet, then you can scrape it off with a knife. A dull old knife will do the job.
After the old glue is removed, let the wooden elements dry a little.

Important! If epoxy resin gets into hard to reach places, then you can use steam instead of water to remove it.

Reconstruction

So, preparatory work completely completed, you can now proceed to the process of restoring the old chair.

Do it in this order:

First, get rid of possible cracks and chips using putty.
Sand the wood thoroughly with sandpaper until all work surface became perfectly smooth.
Carefully inspect all the details. If the legs are loose, then solve this problem now. Use a wedge, drive it in from the end of the axle or wrap the axle with a bandage, then carefully coat it with glue.

Important! If you were unable to secure the legs using the suggested methods, then try using another method that is more effective. Drill a thin hole at the joint and pour glue into it using a syringe. To secure the glue and make the connection more reliable, place some weight on the seat and wait until the glue dries.

Then restore the seat if necessary. It can be wooden or made of soft fabric. It all depends on the design of the furniture itself.
As for updating the frame, this can be done by restoring the paintwork or using decoupage techniques.

Important! If desired, you can sew new covers to not only update the chair, but also make its design more interesting and attractive.

Ideas for decorating old chairs

The refurbishment of old chairs does not end here, you can in various ways decorate them. Below we present options on how to restore antique interior items in an interesting way and decorate them.

Decorate an old chair using one of the suggested options:

Decoration with fabric. This decoration option is considered the simplest, because it is enough to simply re-tighten the old soft places or sew covers. You can use a similar approach to update other interior items.
Back update. You can decorate the back using the decoupage technique or covering it with some interesting fabric, for example, denim. Any novice craftsman can actually figure out how to cover a chair with a backrest with his own hands, and this work will not take much time.
Upholstery reupholstery. It is important to choose durable and high-quality fabric. It can be tapestry, jute, jacquard. In some cases, even velor is suitable.

Important! The best results are achieved by tapestry upholstery, since it is a reliable material that looks quite attractive in appearance.

Repairing chairs with your own hands will not only save money, but also give an old thing a second life. At minimal cost, you can radically change the appearance of the furniture; everything will depend only on your imagination and the selected materials.

Thanks to restoration, any “old” chair will look like new.

Before repairing a chair, you need to familiarize yourself with the detailed technology; this will allow you to avoid serious mistakes and do everything correctly.

Upholstery of an old chair

You will need:

nail puller;
pliers;
small nails and a hammer (furniture stapler);
upholstery fabric;
sackcloth;
dense wide tape;
thick fabric (canvas, tarpaulin);
batting or padding polyester;
coconut fiber.

You can repair a chair, if it has not suffered much over time and looks quite decent, by replacing the upholstery. The first step is to remove the seat, then use a nail puller to remove the old nails, carefully remove the fabric, and remove the rest of the contents and springs.

Tools for reupholstering a chair: stapler, screwdrivers, pliers, drill, jigsaw, screwdriver.

It is important to remember the disassembly sequence - then it will be easier to reassemble the seat. Evaluate the strength of the upholstery materials; those that are still in good condition can be left, but those that have already served their purpose should be replaced with new ones. Do not leave old nails behind - this will greatly complicate subsequent work, especially when using a furniture stapler.

The repair begins by attaching a thick tape to the seat frame; it is best to do this using a furniture stapler. But not every family has such a tool, and buying it to repair a couple of chairs is impractical, so you can use short furniture nails and an ordinary hammer. The tape is nailed in the form of a lattice, intertwining the verticals and horizontals with each other, you should get something like a braid. The distance between the strips should not exceed 5 cm, the ideal option is 3-4 strips vertically and horizontally. In order to tighten the tape well, its end is wound on a wooden block.

Burlap is nailed over the strip lattice, then the springs are placed, sewn on from below using a gypsy needle and strong twine; ordinary sewing threads are not suitable in this case. The main task is to secure the springs so that they become motionless. After this, they begin knitting, hammer a nail in front of each spring (not completely), tie a tight rope on it (you can use linen or linen twine), and drive the nail in until it stops. Then each spring is tied from above; in this case, it is easier to use a knot that is used for weaving nets. Knitting is done vertically, horizontally and diagonally, at the end of each row the rope is tied to a driven nail. It is very important to choose a dense twine that is difficult to tear, since the service life of the new upholstery will depend on this.

A thick fabric (canvas or tarpaulin) is secured over the springs, followed by a layer of coconut fiber, which is covered with batting or synthetic padding (can be replaced with furniture foam), all this is secured with another layer of fabric. Next, they cut out the upholstery material; to make a pattern, just wrap the seat in newspaper. First, nail the upholstery in the center of one of the sides, then from the opposite edge. At the same time, make sure that the threads of the fabric do not become distorted. The corners are secured last; if necessary, the fabric is gathered into small folds. The edge of the upholstery can be trimmed with cord or braid; the decor is glued using a glue gun. All that remains is to return the seat to its place. This can be considered complete.

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Removing old coating

You will need:

sandpaper;
cycle;
wood putty;
spatula.

In most cases, chair repairs begin with removing the old varnish. For this purpose, the easiest way is to use sandpaper (sanding sponge) with medium grain, soaked in water. Under the influence of moisture, the varnish will become wet and come off gradually. In this case, it is necessary to wash the clogged sandpaper in water from time to time.

It is important to pay attention to the quality of the abrasive material; if it leaves a black mark when wet, then such sandpaper is unsuitable for use.

If you use a sander to remove the old coating, then set it to the lowest speed, otherwise you may damage the wood. A special solvent for removing paintwork can only be used if the paint cannot be removed by other means. It is important not to exceed the permissible dose (read the attached instructions), otherwise the product will be absorbed into the wood, which will complicate subsequent processing.

You can remove old cracked varnish using a scraper or broken glass; with gentle movements, simply scrape it off the surface. After this, the chair is sanded with fine-grained sandpaper, then the dust is removed with a rag. If there are places on the surface of the furniture that are damaged by shashel, various chips and scratches, then they need to be restored. Repair begins with processing special means from insects, then apply wood putty (sometimes white or to match the color of the wood). After the putty has dried, it is sanded with fine-grained sandpaper. Which method of removing the old coating to choose is up to you, it all depends on the degree of damage to the varnish and the availability of tools.