Restoring Old Wooden Folding Chairs

Like I've said before, I'm a Craigslist junkie. I saw these chairs on the Ohio Craigslist when I was still in California, and had my husband go pick them up. There was just something that I loved about the shape of them. In May, Justin sanded them down and restained them, which majorly improved their look. For $25 for the set of four, I was pretty pleased.

However, they still had these ugly black seat covers on them. I mean, they could sorta pull off the vintage worn look, but I wanted to update that too. I mean, who knows what sat on those in their long years of life? I found some faux leather alligator skin fabric at Walmart. It ended up being on sale for $5 a yard, but I only needed 3/4 of a yard, so my total price to recover the chairs was $3.75. I love a deal!!

The other thing that we needed was plywood to replace the seats. The seats kinda sunk when you sat on them, so we wanted to replace the wood. Justin got 1/4 inch plywood from Lowe's for $14. (We actually had some left over, but I'm sure we will find use for it sometime.) As you can see, the seats have a groove that the wood slides into, so Justin had to trim the wood with a skill saw and then sand it down on the edges also. He put two coats of stain on the back as well so it wouldn't stand out so much, even though we hope no one will be seeing the undersides of the chair. Finally, he put two holes in for the screws that attach at the front underside of the seat to keep it in place.

After the materials were ready, I had fun actually covering them. Since I had some stuffing left from the other chair project, I just used those to add a little softness between the board and the cover of faux leather alligator skin fabric. Really, I'm getting pretty handy with that staple gun, so attaching it was pretty easy. The thing to remember was to pull it tight as I went around the edges so it would be smooth. I started on the curved from edge and then worked my way around the edges and to the back. Since the edge of the seat fit in the groove, it was forgiving if I had a little rumple or anything. Once I pushed the seat in and fit the screws in place, it was done. Hooray for another restored chair!

Total project cost: About $50 for the four chairs, stain, new plywood, and fabric covers. What a deal.

 Before.....                                 After.....