Craft: Furniture facelift -

Transform a chair

Luckily for us, we found these beautiful Victorian chairs on eBay – we rescued them and gave them a new lease of life

These chairs were in a sorry state but fortunately very easy to put right with a coat of paint, inexpensive materials and a few basic upholstery skills. Fabric for chair pads does need to be upholstery grade fabric as seat pads are regarded as heavy use and need a fabric that can cope with the wear.

You will need per chair
- Flat head screwdriver
- Claw hammer or pliers
- Sanding block
- Sand paper
- Wood filler
- Dust-sheet
- Paint brush
- 750ml Interior Wood Primer & Undercoat No 1, £14.50, Farrow & Ball
- 750ml Off-White Estate Eggshell, from £15.50, Farrow & Ball
- Plywood, cut slightly smaller than the wooden seat frame (approx 30cm x 35cm)
- 2cm steel tacks
- 1cm thick foam, slightly smaller than the seat frame
- 4cm thick foam, the same size as the seat frame
- Polyester wadding, around 50cm x 50cm
- Dipryl fabric, around 50cm x 50cm
- Contact adhesive
- Fabric, to cover the seat pad. We used a 50cm square of Acorn and Leaf fabric in Stone, £39 per m, Vanessa Arbuthnott
- Scissors
- Brown paper
- Marker pen
- Staple gun and staples

Hint
A local upholstery shop charged us just £19 to supply the plywood, two pieces of foam, polyester wadding, Dipryl fabric all cut to size and a box of tacks.

Directions


1. Firstly begin by tidying up the wooden frame for the drop-in seat. Use a screwdriver to lever off any odd pieces of webbing or fabric. Remove any loose upholstery nails with a claw hammer or pliers, use a hammer to flatten any that can’t be removed. When you have finished, wipe the frames clean with a damp cloth.


2. Rub down the frame of the chair with a sanding block, make sure you sand all the intricate moulded parts and the turned legs. Fill any imperfections or cracks in the wooden frame and sand down to give a smooth surface. Wipe away any excess dust and dirt with a damp cloth.

3. Paint the frame with a coat of primer or undercoat and leave to dry. Lightly sand again to provide a key, again wipe away any dust, and then paint with your chosen topcoat. Repeat with a second topcoat if required.


4. Place the frame on top of some cardboard on your work surface. Use a marker pen to draw round the inside. Lift away the wooden frame and enlarge the shape by an extra 3cm all the way round, then cut out the shape. Cut a piece of plywood to the same size as your template. Alternatively ask your local wood yard to cut it for you using your template as a guide. Fix the plywood to the top of the frame using a hammer and 2cm tacks.

5. You need two pieces of foam for each seat pad. Take the wooden frame to your local upholstery shop and ask for a piece of 4cm thick foam to the exact same size of the seat frame. The second smaller piece should be 1cm thick foam and should be cut to the exact size of the inside of the frame.

6. Glue the smaller piece of foam centrally in place on top of the plywood. When dry, glue the second larger piece directly on top. Layering the foam like this will give the seat pad a slightly curved shape.


7. Next lay a piece of wadding on top of your foam, cut or tear the wadding, the professional term is to ‘feather’, so it covers the top and sides of the foam and finishes at the bottom the wooden frame. Staple through once on each side to lightly hold it in place.

8. Lay your fabric down on top of the pad and centralise the print. Turn the seat pad over and staple the fabric to the underneath of the wooden frame. Tuck the fabric neatly at each corner. To finish off staple a layer of black Dipryl fabric to the underneath of the wooden frame. Place the upholstered pad into the chair frame.


Hint
Upholstery fabric can be costly, but we thought the elegant Victorian style of the chairs needed a design of really good quality. As the chairs cost nothing and each chair pad used such a little amount of fabric we decided it was worth splashing out.