Today I thought I’d share how I recently repaired our dining room chairs. I like the Shabby Chic look very much, but these French-style chairs have been getting shabbier as each year passes. It was time to give them a refresh…
I refinished these thrift store chairs the first year I began blogging. Two chairs are now in need of new seats as their seat caning has ripped out, and they all need some TLC with fresh coats of paint.
So over several weekends, Mr. Ethereal helped me set up two saw horses and plywood as a small workshop table out in our garage. He also pulled out the jigsaw and the new electric sander for working on this project.
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Creating a pattern
I began by tracing around the top of one chair and transferred that pattern to plywood.
Hubby cut out this first template. I refined this first cutout and adjusted the wood pattern, refining it, shaving off some wood to make the cutout fit better.
The new pattern was adapted to fit each chair as needed with each progressive cutout.
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Round one done ~ Repairing & Painting next
So after fitting each chair, sanding each piece and wiping them down again, it was time to start fixing loosened chairs.
Two chairs needed their back legs reglued. Using large clamps, the backs and stretchers were pulled together to set. The clamps were kept in place for 24 hours.
When we left California, I kept the original can of white paint and when I bought a replacement I wrote on the can that it was used for painting these chairs. After a quick trip to Lowe’s to have this almost full can shaken, I dry-brushed paint onto each chair.
After drying for 24 hours, each chair was lightly sanded to distress it. Touch up paint was applied on several of the chairs to cover red and blue which had rubbed off chair pads and blue jeans over the years.
Finally, I drilled and set screws into each chair seat piece. These chairs have strong seats now and I am still deciding if I want to refinish the final two chairs or leave them in their original stained state.
I love how these chairs have turned out!
What do you think? Let me know in the comments if you’d leave the remaining two chairs as is, or refinish them.
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I appreciate your thoughts,
Barb,
I LOVE how the chairs turned out and I say do all the chairs this way…I would love to do something like this with my entire Dining Room set which was Joe’s grandmother’s but that would be a really big undertaking and I am not sure I want to get into that right now…I do have to reupholster my Dining Room chair seats….. Great job!! hanks so much for sharing!!
Hugs,
Deb
Debbie-Dabble Blog
You are welcome, Debbie! If you sand one chair at a time, get it wiped down, the dry brush painting goes really quickly. It’s the original sanding which took like an hour per chair. I would do two a day, then ice my forearms to keep the evil carpal tunnel at bay, lol! 😂 I hope you get to this project soon! It’s a good way to keep busy. 💕💝☺️
Great job! Love the new look.
I was sure I commented on this but I don’t see it here. Even though I don’t need this right now, I’m always bookmarking it because I never know what I’ll find out junking that could use some help. Did you ever do your “what to do with old flags” post? People always gave them to me when I was public speaking and iI could never find anyone who wanted them because if you want a flag, you already have one (or in my case, more.) Apart from cutting mine up for crafts, which I think isn’t legal, I’m thinking a July 4 tablecloth. Otherwise, it’s off to Goodwill or wherever. I’d love to see your post.