DIY- Guest Room Chair

I had been looking for a chair for my guest room, and I didn't want to spend a ton. I also was in the mood to do a little project. So I headed over to my local Habitat for Humanity ReStore, and they didn't disappoint!

I narrowed it down to a few choices and ultimately chose this lovely gold velvet number. It was $25. Fabric aside, I love the details of the chair. The French legs, the rattan sides, and the tufted back.

First step was to remove all the trim and yellow velvet fabric. There were hundreds and hundreds of staples that I removed one-by-one with a screwdriver and pliers.

Next, I removed the worn-out foam batting in the seat and replaced it with some plain batting from Hancock Fabrics.

Finally, time to paint. First I sanded the chair. Then, I primed it. Third, I painted it with Krylon white gloss spray paint. It was amazing the difference a coat of paint made on this chair. Removing all the fabric and staples had taken longer than I expected, but seeing the chair with a fresh coat of paint motivated me to keep on trucking with this project.

The next step was to find appropriate fabric. The bedding in my guest room is Yves Delorme Jonquille, so I knew I wanted to find some fabric that was light and airy, in either green or yellow and white.

I found this green tweed at The Boulevard here in Charlotte for $1 per yard. For anyone local, The Boulevard is AMAZING. It's owned by Century Furniture out of Hickory and is basically several huge warehouses full of Century showroom pieces at deeply discounted prices. By the way, it is only open Friday through Sunday. Century Furniture also owns Valdese Weavers, which manufactures alot of high-end fabric, so you can often score fabulous fabrics by the yard from Scalamandre, P Kaufmann, Thibaut, Kravet, Oscar de la Renta, and many others. And nothing is more than $5 per yard (most are between $1 and $3 in my experience).

For the chair, I estimated that I needed around 2 yards since the fabric has such a small repeat, but I went ahead and splurged (ha) on 7. I knew I could do something in the room with the rest of the fabric. I already owned the yellow trim fabric and had used it previously on some throw pillows for the bed. I think the 2 fabrics work well together.

I attached the fabric to the chair with a staple gun. It was a challenge to hide all the staples and seams. This project was definitely one of the most difficult I have done. If the chair had not had the upholstered back, it would have been much much much easier. I would recommend for your first project that you do a chair with only an upholstered seat, not a tufted back.

Next, I bought a covered button kit at Hancock's and made them out of the yellow fabric. I then bought big "doll" needles to do the tufting. It still didn't turn out quite as "tight" as I would have liked, but it does look better in person than in these pictures.

And the finished product. I am happy with how it turned out!

Before...

After!

So for less than $40 total, I have a custom chair that is perfect in that guest room! I made a bedskirt and pillow shams with the leftover green tweed fabric, to tie the whole room together. I also bought pre-made white (lined) drapery panels and then sewed a 2-inch strip of the green tweed down the side for a custom look.