BEFORE & AFTER: rags to riches, folding chair makeover


final chair after

I’m a hunter & scavenger of the vintage kind. There’s nothing that gets me more excited that finding thrifted treasures for pennies and up-cycling them into something fabulous. For this project it’s a set of dated brown folding chairs and dress that’s a little too dated for even me to pull off but the fabric is too great not to reuse.

Folding Chair Makeover Before / The Sweet Escape

What you’ll need for this project: 
– glossy black spray paint
– spray glue or liquid adhesive
– spray or liquid sealer
– painters tape
– large soft paint brush
– staple gun
– gold leaf (optional depending on your design)
materials
Let’s start with the chairs. Remove the seats and set aside. Give the chairs a few coats of black paint with drying time in between.

Folding Chair Makeover instructions / The Sweet Escape

Once the chair is dry, mask off the top part where you will put the gold leaf. Make sure you have your gold leaf ready to go. I suggest testing it out on something small if you haven’t used it before. I learned this the hard way! So then spray or apply generous layer of glue then apply the gold leaf. Brush off the excess when you’re happy with the coverage. I purposely made it look a little rough.

chair step 3 and 4

You’ll end up with something like this:

chair step 5

Then we get to the seat. Cut up your dress, layout flat and wrap around the seat then staple down. Trim and cut the corners.

chair-seat-makeover

And voila, you can pop the seat back in and you have something super fabulous like this!

 

AFTER 2

These chairs are so cute you won’t want to fold them back and put them away. AFTER 3

If you liked this, you can check out more DIY before & after projects here.

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5 responses to “BEFORE & AFTER: rags to riches, folding chair makeover”

    • Thanks Thalita! Yeah, I’m pretty happy with it and it seriously was easy. God I love spray paint.

  1. Whoa! A dress?! So inventive and gorgeous! You see those chairs everywhere, and I really have never thought I’d see one that I want. I would definitely pay for this one. Good luck in CWTS!!