Instructions for the restoration of chairs at home with your own hands. How to restore an old chair with your own hands Update an old stool with metal legs

Hello, friends! Today, let's forget for a while about universal problems, turmoil in the economy, and other global topics.

I want to suggest to you, if you have a little extra money, free time and a desire to do something with your own hands, change the interior of your house a little.

Actually, I don't like to keep old things in my apartment. But somehow it so happened that, with a total renovation of the interior after another protracted repair, four old chairs remained standing in the kitchen.

At first, I made a promise to myself that I would soon replace them with new and stylish ones. But they took root in our family so much, they became almost “native” and somehow I did not dare to throw them into a landfill.

Then, looking closely at them, I thought: “but they are not so bad - wooden, strong, well, except that the upholstery has already faded and does not quite match the color of our new kitchen.”

And if so, I decided to act and repair the old chairs with my own hands. To tell the truth, not with my own, but with the hands of my husband.

He is a great craftsman and everything he does, he does only with a sign of quality (I will brag a little). Therefore, I entrusted this work to him without hesitation.

Since we only needed to replace the upholstery of the chair, and the rest of its wooden parts did not need to be repaired (except perhaps to renew the varnish in some places), we bought:

• Fabric for furniture upholstery - 1x1.40 m. This fabric was just enough for us for 4 chairs and there was still a little bit left (later for the upholstery of the ottoman). When choosing, we focused on quality, texture and a suitable color. The purchase of fabric cost us 360 rubles.
• Foam rubber. We decided not to use the old foam, but to buy a new one and make the chairs a little softer. Foam rubber was sold only in sheets. 1 such sheet measuring 1x2 m, thickness - 20 mm. His purchase cost us 240 rubles.
• A piece of plywood 6 mm thick, approximately 1x1 m in size. The plywood was left over from the repair.
• Furniture stapler and special staples for it. We didn’t buy it either, because it was already there.
• I also needed a small piece of wood. Small pieces were cut out of it, approximately 2 cm wide and 10 cm long. And some screws to fasten them.
• Water-based wood varnish (we also had it).

Work sequence:

• Removed the old seat

• New blanks were cut to the size of the old seat (if the old plywood is in good condition, you can leave it too)

• Pieces of foam rubber were cut according to the same dimensions. In order to make our chairs soft, the foam was placed in 2 layers

• Started cutting fabric. The fabric was also cut to the size of the seat, but at the same time 5 cm were added on all sides for hem

All. We have prepared all the blanks.

Let's start assembling

We make such a kind of layer cake from our blanks: first - fabric, then foam rubber and the base of the plywood chair.

In order for the seat not to move on the chair and to be well fixed, special wooden blocks were screwed onto the plywood from the underside with screws.

We fix the fabric on the back of the base with a furniture stapler.

Everything - our beautiful and soft seat is ready.

And here, take a look at what we got:

The chairs are almost like new. Beautiful upholstery goes very well with wallpaper and fronts on kitchen cabinets. In addition, they have turned from semi-soft to soft.

And all this cost us only 600 rubles. Well, in which store will you buy four wooden chairs for that kind of money?

How do you like this savings? I really liked it. Something else needs to be repaired.

Oh, yes, I completely forgot that there was some fabric left, and I wanted to use it to reupholster the cover of the ottoman. But more on that next time.

What do-it-yourself interior renovation secrets do you have? Bye Bye…

Many things lose their attractive appearance over time, so they need to be updated. You can make some effort to restore the furniture and give it an amazing look. Especially often people remake old chairs. There are many ways to restore them.

Kinds

To update the old chair yourself, you need to decide on the type of restoration. There are several ways to help restore outdated furniture. To update wooden products or chipboard surfaces, you can apply the following methods:

• Decoupage- this is the possibility of decorating furniture by gluing some motifs or pictures cut out of paper onto it. To preserve the updated surface of the object, a special varnish is used that protects the paper from external influences. Decoupage allows you to choose an interesting pattern and transfer it to old furniture, thereby updating the interior.

• Adhesive tape or film helps to update old furniture without much effort. Decorative self-adhesive film can be designed to imitate natural stone, wood, leather and ceramics. She is not afraid of water, temperature changes and direct sunlight. With its help, you can completely transform a faded chair.

• Art painting- This is a way of decorating objects with various colors. There are several types of artistic painting: Khokhloma, Zhostovo, Gzhel and Mezen painting. But for restoration by this method, skill and care are needed.

• Craquelure- a technique for creating a visually aged tree. Cracks form on the coating, through which the main tone is visible. To get this result, use a special plaster, varnish or paint.

The technique itself does not require serious preparation and accuracy of application.

• Painting- the easiest type of restoration, for which it is only necessary to clean the product well. The lacquer coating will keep the attractiveness of the chair for a long time.

• lamination- a method that uses decorated paper that is glued to the surface of the chair using synthetically molten resin.

• Veneering- is a renovation of furniture with a thin layer of wood, which is glued to the surface using a one- or two-component composition. And to give the veneer aesthetics, you can cover it with varnish or wax.

In addition to updating the aesthetic appearance of the chair, sometimes more serious intervention may be required - it may be necessary to replace or repair a broken part of the structure. In some cases, it is enough to only restore the connecting parts, while in others it is necessary to completely replace the part.

To restore a wooden or metal chair, it may be necessary to replace the old upholstery. To do this, it is necessary to prepare materials that will help restore the product. Upholstery requires precision and precision, combined with proficiency with tools.

How to disassemble yourself?

Disassembling a chair with your own hands is not difficult, since its design is known to almost everyone. First you need to unscrew the back, and then the legs. And they assemble the product in the reverse order so that all the grooves take their places. If the high chair is fixed with glued spikes, the attachment points are moistened with hot water or doused with steam from a steam generator.

If there are cracks on the wooden structure, then they are filled with a mixture of glue and sawdust or glued and clamped until they are completely fixed. In case of damage to the spike fasteners, the old plugs are replaced, and the side joints are glued together. To do this, make a small hole, pour glue into it and wait until it dries.

If the old chair staggers, then it is necessary to remove the legs from the special grooves and wedge their upper part. Due to this, they increase and better keep in the grooves.

Updating a baby chair follows the same principle as an adult, but sometimes it needs to replace the hinges or the swivel mechanism. Typically, children's designs consist of many parts that are designed to secure the position of the child. For greater strength, all connecting points must be glued.

To disassemble the folding chair, it is enough to remove the axial pins that connect the back and seat, and then remove the seat. Metal-based structures are easier to disassemble - you need to unscrew the seat and the soft part of the back.

If the seat of the chair is installed on a spring block, then it must be replaced with new springs. It is not necessary to remove the entire block for this.

Recovery process step by step

After disassembling the structure and restoring damaged parts, it is necessary to remove the old paintwork. After that, the main stage of restoration begins.

On the cleaned surface of the chair, a primer is first applied, which completely matches the color of the product. After waiting for complete drying, the primer is cleaned with sandpaper to obtain a thin layer of coating. After that, the product is covered with paint or varnish, waiting for it to dry and another layer is applied.

Each material is painted in a special way. For example, an anti-corrosion agent is first applied to the metal frame, after complete drying, it is covered with the main color. Transparent varnish is applied in several stages, and if a coloring composition is used, then it is better to resort to metal enamel.

The wooden frame is first treated with wax, carefully distributing it over all areas. Instead of wax, you can use an oil primer, which is applied with a brush. Then the product is covered with several layers of acrylic paint. These recovery steps allow you to quickly and easily renew your chair without the need for special protective masks and gloves.

It is highly undesirable to paint plastic chairs, because plastic tends to bend, and this will lead to cracking and peeling of the paint. Therefore, it is a priority for them to sew covers or pillows.

The last stage of the update consists of creating beautiful upholstery. After removing the old upholstery, the base of the seat is cut out of the foam cushion, which is then attached to the surface using glue. For additional fixation, you can use paper clips. Having stretched the fabric well over the entire seat, it is fixed from below with furniture clips. Depending on personal preferences, the fabric may have a bright pattern or no pattern at all.

To remake a seat with springs, the batting is first fixed, and then the foam sheet layer. The fabric is attached according to the same principle as with a single layer of foam rubber, but it is pulled with more emphasis to smooth out the springy relief.

Many people think about what kind of paint is better to paint in order to maintain the effect for a long time. For wooden products, you can use a stain or paint and varnish, and for iron structures - enamel specially designed for metal.

Viennese

To repair Viennese chairs yourself, you first need to assess their general condition. The amount of damage may depend on the operating conditions.

The most important damage that can be assessed at home is instability. This is due to the weakening of the spiked joints. To bring the product back to normal, it is necessary to increase the size of the spike, put the seals on the sides and replace the power bars. After that, the paintwork is replaced and the seat is restored.

To restore an outdated structure, you need to prepare the basic materials and tools. To work, you need to get a hammer, a furniture stapler, a self-tapping screw, paints and varnishes, a solvent, brushes, glue, scissors, cloth and sandpaper.

The renewal process begins with cleaning all surfaces of the product from dirt and dust. After that, the disassembly of the chair begins. First, the seat and back are removed, which are usually held on with screws. Then, step by step, the rest of the details are removed. It is important to check the strength of all connections. If some attachment point is not holding well, then it is not worth disassembling it.

Disassembled elements must be replaced immediately so that no errors occur during the assembly process. All parts are cleaned with sandpaper to thoroughly clean them of old varnish. This is necessary in order to repaint the furniture, the new layer fits perfectly on the chair.

Next, be sure to inspect the places where the elements are glued together. The top of the legs, which are attached in the grooves, must be wrapped with several layers of bandage, smearing each layer with glue. If the leg staggers very strongly, then a hole is made in the end, into which a small wedge is then driven in. This will increase the width of the end, and the leg will hold firmly in the groove.

For drawer structures with a weakened seam, a hole must be made on the inside, and an adhesive should be injected into it using a syringe. You can also resort to matches lubricated in glue, and when assembling the chair, insert them into the socket. In this case, the ends must be fitted with great accuracy so that no gaps form between them and the sides.

The assembly of the structure begins with the complete gluing of all spiked joints. Excess glue must be removed with a napkin. The product dries for about a day, and for maximum fixing, you need to put some heavy object on the seat.

To update the seat, you need to get rid of worn upholstery and eliminate all surface imperfections. If it is necessary to change the foam rubber, then on a new foam rubber sheet you need to draw a markup and cut out the part. The fabric with which the seat will be upholstered should be larger than the resulting seat. It is placed close to the surface and secured with paper clips from the back.

The chair itself can be decorated in Provence style. To do this, all wooden parts are painted, and after drying, they are processed with a grinder.

To fix the effect, you need to cover the structure with varnish.

Details update

You can decorate the chair in various ways. Any materials can be used: paper, fabric, laces, paints, napkins, etc. It all depends on the imagination of the master and on the level of his skill. Naturally, if a person does not know how to work with complex equipment, then you should not resort to it. We need to start with something more understandable.

With the help of sisal

For this method, you can use both a wooden and a metal frame. To work, you will need a large ball of sisal rope, a dense upholstery fabric such as velvet, a stapler, superglue, scissors, nails, a hammer, a pencil and a centimeter tape.

You need to start the repair by removing the old upholstery from the seat and back. Then the back details are wrapped with sisal, smoothly moving to the legs. This should be done in such a way that the rope fits snugly around the part and each subsequent row fits snugly against the previous one. Fix the material with glue.

Having finished winding all the elements, you need to create a decoration on the back. To do this, the rope in several layers in 2-3 rows is wound first between the upper and lower crossbars, and then between the side ones.

Having made a pattern of a new upholstery, you need to fix it on the seat. Small nails or a stapler are suitable for this.

wool yarn

To resort to this option, you will need a design on a metal frame with a mesh back and seat. For work, you need to prepare scissors, multi-colored woolen yarn, a crochet hook, a wooden plank, a screwdriver and screws.

In this case, the mesh plays the role of a canvas, so you need to thread double threads through it in a diagonal direction. In addition, each row can have a different color. You can use two contrasting colors or several shades that are close in tone.

You can strengthen the damaged mesh with a few stitches of yarn. After you need to cut a bar that will repeat the shape of the seat, and fix it with screws.

Decoupage from sewing patterns

This option is well suited for vintage wooden products with a hard seat. For work, you will need patterns from magazines, glue, a brush, acrylic varnish, scissors, fabric, thread and a needle.

Surely at home each of us has one old, or even a couple of good solid wooden chairs, which, however, are. And everything would be fine, but their appearance leaves much to be desired. It seems to be a thing with a history - almost a family heirloom, so it's a pity to throw it away. But why throw it away if there is a restoration of chairs with your own hands? It is not necessary to contact the master who can do it for you. After all, firstly, you still need to try hard to find such a master. And, secondly, in this old item you can embody your new ideas and design fantasies. Try your hand, and we will show you how to pull a chair with your own hands and make it the highlight of your interior!

Where to begin?

First of all, it is necessary to realistically assess the amount of work to be done. Remember that any chair, in whatever condition it may be. You can always replace worn and broken parts with new ones. After an objective look, you need to think about the final result. That is, what would you like to get out of this chair in the end. Think carefully about what room it will be in. And move on from that. The interior, in which the updated chair will be located, will be the starting point for the restoration at home of this piece of furniture.

Coloring

Whatever repair you are planning, painting or varnishing the surface of the chair is a must. To give this piece of furniture an updated look, you should get rid of the old coating. Therefore, you will need to use sandpaper. With it, you can easily remove cracked paint or varnish. But first you need to remove the seat and upholstery. For these purposes, use a hammer and, if necessary, a screwdriver. In some chairs, the seat is attached with nails, so you will need a nail puller to remove them. At the end of this stage, you can safely sand the legs, back and frame with sandpaper. If you decide to repair furniture at home, be prepared to work hard with sandpaper. Perhaps this is the most tedious stage in the restoration of wooden coatings. The wood can be painted with several layers of varnish or paint, so at first it is better to work with coarse grit sandpaper. Grinding is carried out with a fine-grained sandpaper.

Now you can go directly. It is known that the tree very well absorbs any liquids. Therefore, our repair will not do without a primer. It will allow the paint to be more evenly distributed over the surface and last much longer. The primer can be white or colorless. The first is better to use if you are going to stain the chair. A colorless primer will be needed for those who will continue to use varnish and do not want to overlap the wooden texture. After applying one or more layers of primer, you need to wait for it to dry completely. Now it remains to once again walk with a fine-grained sandpaper and proceed with the application of paint or varnish. But if you want to give the product an even more polished look, use a special wax balm. It is applied after the primer has dried before applying the paint. It should dry well, after which it will need to be carefully polished with a brush. Now you can paint. To keep the product in its original form longer, it is best to apply two layers of dye, after allowing each to dry well.

Sometimes the interior project does not provide for the use of soft seats. Therefore, the repair of the chair ends with painting the seat and screwing it to the frame. If you want to completely refurbish the chair with new upholstery, proceed to the next step.

Upholstery replacement

It is important that the upholstery, the chair itself and the interior do not stand out from one design decision. Therefore, you need to think through everything in advance to the last detail. Use only thick upholstery fabric, even if you are not only repairing an upholstered seat, but also making a chair cushion.

Remove all brackets from the old seat. This is easy to do with large tweezers. Now we start replacing the batting. The pre-cut piece must be put on hot melt adhesive and allowed to fix well. If this is the first furniture repair in your life, we recommend that you get by with a plain fabric. (and even more so with stripes) you will have to constantly check how evenly it is located. And for a beginner, it can be quite complicated and troublesome.

Be sure to leave a five-centimeter margin of fabric along each edge. Maybe even a little more. Pin the fabric to the surface to control the placement of the pattern. Gradually stretch the upholstery, fixing it with a construction stapler at a distance of no more than 1-2 centimeters. Depending on the shape, the fabric at the corners can be fixed as follows:

Almost all pieces of furniture are subject to wear and tear. Even with careful handling, time takes its toll, and the material from which this or that thing is made undergoes aging and loses its appearance, and in some cases already ceases to fulfill its main function. In the case of chairs, the seat of the chair, that is, its upholstery, wears out first. And also the legs often suffer due to the fact that they constantly have a load. They can break, loosen and eventually fall off completely, causing the chair to become unusable.

This is where the need for its restoration arises, because this process will not take much time and you will not spend as much money as if you bought a new chair. The process of restoring furniture is especially relevant if it is an expensive, old, rare thing or someone else's gift that you do not want to throw away.

Chair restoration

You need to know that old chairs are repaired for a number of reasons, which are characterized by certain damage. This may be an insignificant defect in the form of erasing the paintwork. Viennese chairs usually have such a defect. In this case, it is only necessary to clean the wooden surface and paint. There are more significant damage.:

• breakage of wooden elements (legs, backs);
• upholstery wear.

When the upholstery fabric is worn out, it is necessary to carry out such a restoration process as a hauling. It cannot be said that this is a very time-consuming work, rather simple, in contrast to the one when you need to restore the "backbone" of the chair when it is loosened.

Old wooden chairs, stools, stools and stools can be repaired with some tools and the necessary material.

Instruments

• coarse sandpaper;
• fine-grained sandpaper;
• different types of screwdrivers;
• stapler;
• mallet and hammer;
• scissors;
• tassel;
• screwdriver;
• clamps.

Material

From materials, to repair wooden chairs with your own hands, you will need the following items:

Operating procedure

Repairing chairs with your own hands is not a difficult process. Many people have already gone through this and know all the nuances of how to restore an old chair with their own hands. All you need is to thoroughly study the master class on chair decoupage and other restoration techniques.

Disassembly

To start, refurbished chair needed properly clean from dust and dirt, applying to it also wet cleaning with a sponge. After waiting for the surface to dry completely, you can proceed to the next step.

Before proceeding directly to the restoration of the chair, it must be disassembled. There are two types of disassembly: complete and incomplete. Complete disassembly includes the dismantling of the entire structure of the chair. Of course, this option is more complex and time-consuming, and if you choose it, then you can give advice on how to do it. If the entire structure of the chair is fastened with screws, then this will not be difficult. In the case when the legs, backrest and all parts of the chair are held together thanks to the glue poured into the grooves, you will have to make a little effort to disassemble it.

As a rule, the seat and back are removed without difficulty. The difficult step in disassembly is the disassembly of the frame itself. Here it is necessary to apply a certain force to knock the parts out of the grooves. For these purposes, it is best to use a mallet (rubber or wooden), because a metal hammer can easily chip the components of the chair or form dents.

Removing old glue

In any case, when knocking out parts, you will need to get rid of the old dried glue (in some cases it can be epoxy). To do this, use a dampened sponge or some unnecessary rags. It must be applied at the attachment point of the two parts and left for a while so that the glue or epoxy gets wet. After that, the parts will easily move away from each other.

If it is difficult to get close to any place to remove the glue, you can use another method, which, by the way, is more effective. This method is based on the principle of removing glue with high pressure steam. Most likely, most people do not have special devices that create a targeted effect of hot steam under high pressure. . But there is a way out here too.. It is enough to find a piece of rubber hose about a meter long and put it on the spout of a kettle filled with water, which at that time is put on the stove. On the hose itself, you can pick up some kind of nozzle that narrows its diameter.

Recovery steps

Below we will consider the restoration of the chair at home with incomplete disassembly. The stages of stool recovery will be in the following order:

1. Inspection of the coating and repair of cracks if necessary.
2. Strengthening loose legs.
3. Seat restoration.
4. Creating covers.

The last stage is optional and is performed at the request of everyone. DIY chair covers will protect the chair and make it look newer. And also due to the fact that they can be changed, there is a factor of variability in the design.

So, first of all, you need to prepare the work surface and take care of hand protection and overalls. To protect your hands, use pharmaceutical rubber gloves and wear clothes that you don't mind getting dirty. If you are restoring a chair outdoors, then there must be appropriate weather conditions for this (no wind or rain). If you do this at home, then you can lay oilcloth or large garbage bags on the floor under the chair.

After dismantling the seat, it must be removed from the old upholstery and fitted with a new one. Upholstery fabric can buy at any furniture store, with matching pattern and color. Upholstery can be glued or nailed. In the second case, you will need pliers. It is advisable to remove the old coating, and not fit a new one over it. The filler should also be removed. Then it needs to be sanded with medium grit sandpaper and, after wiping the dust with a damp cloth and waiting for it to dry, cover it twice with a primer.

The interval between coats of primer should ideally be 24 hours, but the manufacturer usually specifies a shorter time. The primer also has bactericidal properties, which is especially important for old furniture. When two coats of primer are applied, you can proceed to close-fitting.

Note: You can sheathe the seat with a special master. As a rule, such services are quite cheap, especially if you provide the master with your material for covering.

Synthetic foam rubber or batting is suitable for filler. When using batting, the number of layers is about 4, but more can be done, depending on how soft the seat you want to achieve. . Batting or foam rubber cut strictly to the size of the seat and fixed on its surface with a furniture stapler or small nails.

The upholstery material, the so-called seat cushion, should be fixed not only around the perimeter, but also in the middle. This will prevent the material from slipping during operation. Now, in order to fit our seat, we cut off the cape along the contour of the seat, stepping back about five centimeters from the edge. Having placed the filler, you can drag it, fixing each side with a stapler and overlapping the corners, which are also fixed. The reverse (invisible side) can not be covered.

How to make a chair

Perhaps, The easiest way, if you have a chainsaw and a grinder, make it using ordinary acacia hemp or another tree with a beautiful texture. It is done in the following way. A stump of a suitable size is cut off, the diameter of which will vary from 25 to 30 cm. You choose the height yourself, focusing on the one that will be comfortable for you. The height can be determined by measuring some home stool. After that, an incision is made with a chainsaw in the form of a cross, about half the depth of the stump.

Then, with an ax, a small depression is made in the middle of the stump and a small amount of combustible material - gasoline or diesel fuel - is poured into it. In the process of burning, the inside of the stool will burn out, it is important to monitor this process and prevent the legs from becoming thin. The thickness of the legs should be at least five centimeters at the base and it expands towards the seat. All burnt wood is scraped off with an ax or knife and polished with a grinder. A special nozzle in the form of a brush with coarse bristles is put on it.

After cleaning the inner surface, using a grinder and a grinding disc, the edges of the legs and the seat are processed along the entire circumference . Then painting is done stain diluted to the desired shade and, after drying, varnish.

Stool

To make a simple stool, you need quite a bit of time and a minimal set of tools. Of these, you will need:

The diagram below shows with a dotted line the shape of the leg that you need to cut out in the amount of four pieces, as well as the required dimensions for the board. The shape may be different, it is shown here as an example.

Important: The base of the leg must be flat to give the stool stability.

After marking the workpiece, cut with a jigsaw strictly along the line. In the future, the resulting leg can be used as a layout simply by applying it to the material, circling and cutting it off. When all four legs are cut off, we proceed to their processing. You can clean the edges with a semicircular router, but if there is none, use ordinary sandpaper. True, it will take a little longer. The stool seat requires a board of the same section in the form of a square with a side of 320 mm. The edges of the seat need to be smoothed and made semicircular. The workpiece is also cleaned from all sides with a grinder.

Then, when all four legs and the seat of the stool are ready, provided that they are well processed with sandpaper, you can start connecting all four legs. First, we drill two holes in each leg in the upper part. The drill must be used with a slightly smaller diameter than the self-tapping screw, otherwise it will not hold. Then a small indentation is made with a drill of a larger diameter, so that when the screw is screwed in, its head is drowned and it can be safely primed in the future.

An approximate connection diagram is shown in the figure below, for this you need to attach one leg perpendicular to the other and connect with self-tapping screws.

In the same way, we connect the other two legs and fasten them to the rest. Such a connection is very reliable, since four screws hold one leg. When all four legs are connected, we apply the entire fastened structure to the stool cover and mark its contours with a pencil in order to know where to screw the screws when connecting the seat to the legs. We make holes on the outside of the seat, not forgetting a small hole of a larger diameter to hide the heads of the screws. After tightening all the screws, it remains only to clean the places where there were connections and cover the entire surface of the stool with varnish and stain (if desired).

Covers and capes

Tools needed to make your own chair cover:

• sewing machine;
• scissors;
• fabric and thread.

First of all, remove all marks from the chair: height, width, distance from the back to the seat, length of the legs. An alternative way to remove marks is to make marks directly on the fabric when you apply them to the chair.

The cover itself will consist of two capes. One of them will extend from the bottom of the legs to the back and throw over it. Another cape covers the side of the legs. The two capes are held together with bandages of the same material as the capes. The fabric is sewn on both sides on a sewing machine, and the bandages are sewn on by hand.

Sooner or later, every person needs to buy new furniture, this applies not only to large interior items, but also to chairs. But before you go to the store, you need to think carefully, because perhaps your house has a lot of furniture that you can update yourself and transform beyond recognition. In addition, prices in modern salons and markets are often overpriced. For example, restoring chairs with your own hands is an ideal way out of this situation. Today we will tell you how the restoration of old furniture takes place, how to proceed in stages in order to achieve a good result.

The main advantages of furniture restoration

This option of restoring interior items has a lot of advantages. The most obvious of these include:

1. This process takes quite a bit of time, especially if you follow the instructions clearly.
2. The transformation of old furniture allows you to save a lot on the purchase of new products.
3. Restoration of chairs allows you to get as a result completely new, unique things that are not found in any other home.

Chairs, like other pieces of furniture, tend to wear out, and quite quickly. Even the highest quality products are subject to breakage and aging, especially when a person accelerates this process with his actions. This can be serious damage caused by negligence and too intensive use. Seats suffer the most, as they bear the maximum load.

To restore worn-out products, it is not at all necessary to have extensive experience in the field of repair and decoration. It is enough to familiarize yourself with several workshops on painting, hauling, decoupage, decorating, reworking old furniture, and you will succeed.

Important! This experience will certainly come in handy in the future if you decide to reupholster an old sofa or reupholster an armchair. Using this approach, you can breathe a second life into any product, instead of sending it to a landfill.

In addition, this idea has another huge plus: you will not only restore old chairs on your own, but also experience maximum positive emotions from the realization of your own creative idea.

Features of updating an armchair or chair

Remember that the method you choose to restore the chair with your own hands depends on the nature of the damage. There are three main types of damage:

• Upholstery wear.
• Back problems, broken leg, seat, or other piece of wood.
• The paintwork on the wooden surface has fallen into disrepair.

Based on this, we can conclude that the repair and restoration scheme is selected, depending on where the problem arose on the furniture:

• Often it is enough to connect the loosened parts, to replace the connecting part that has failed over time. This applies to spikes and grooves.
• Expansion and wear of these very elements leads to the fact that the chair slowly begins to loosen and becomes completely unstable. In such cases, the repair consists in the complete disassembly of the furniture with the build-up of a spike. Here you have to work hard.
• If the problem concerns the wear of the paintwork, then it is easier to fix it. If the varnish is cracked, it is enough to remove it, sand the surface with sandpaper and apply a new layer of paint or varnish.
• Reupholstery of old chairs can also be called a simple matter, because you just need to replace the torn or worn fabric with new material.

Now we will consider the most popular restoration options in stages.

Step by step reconstruction of an old chair

Before you restore an old chair with your own hands, you should familiarize yourself with the sequence of this work. If this is your first time doing this, then check out the short tutorial below.

Training

If you approach the work correctly, you can completely restore the furniture yourself, even if the upholstery is torn on it, the legs are loosened, the paint or varnish is completely or partially cracked.

The first step is to prepare a minimum set of necessary materials and tools:

1. Materials: self-tapping screws (screws), upholstery fabric, staples for a stapler, foam rubber, glue for wooden furniture, varnish or paint.
2. Tools: hammer, screwdriver, scissors, two different screwdrivers, clamp, brush, sandpaper, stapler, small mallet.

After that, prepare the chair: clean it from dust, dirt, wash it thoroughly.

Disassembly

Naturally, before updating an old chair with a backrest with your own hands, it must be completely disassembled. Once it dries, you can get to work:

1. First of all, the back and seat are removed, only then the frame is disassembled.
2. When knocking out parts, use a rubber mallet so as not to damage them. Work as carefully as possible.
3. If the chair is assembled with screws or spikes, then it is enough to unscrew them.
4. Fold all the details neatly or mark them in some way so as not to confuse them later.
5. If there is old glue left somewhere, in particular epoxy, then attach moistened rags or sponges to these places. Any unnecessary old rags will do. Let it stay on the parts until the glue is completely soaked, then it can be scraped off with a knife. A dull old knife will do the job.
6. After the old glue is removed, let the wooden elements dry a little.

Important! If epoxy gets into hard-to-reach places, you can use steam instead of water to remove it.

Reconstruction

So, the preparatory work is fully completed, now you can proceed to the process of restoring the old chair.

Do it in this order:

• First, get rid of possible cracks and chips with putty.
• Sand the wood thoroughly with sandpaper so that the entire work surface is perfectly smooth.
• Look carefully at all the details. If the legs are loose, then solve this problem now. Use a wedge, drive it in from the end of the trunnion or wrap the trunnions with a bandage, then carefully coat it with glue.

Important! If you were unable to secure the legs in the suggested ways, then try using another method that is more effective. Drill a thin hole at the junction, pour glue into it with a syringe. To secure the adhesive, to make the connection more secure, place some weight on the seat and wait for the adhesive to dry.

• Then refurbish the seat if necessary. It can be wooden or made of soft fabric. It all depends on the design of the furniture itself.
• As for updating the frame, this can be done by restoring the paintwork or using decoupage techniques.

Important! If desired, you can sew new covers in order not only to update the chair, but to make its design more interesting and attractive.

Ideas for decorating old chairs

The alteration of old chairs does not end there, you can decorate them in various ways. Below we will give options on how to restore antique interior items in an interesting way and decorate them.

Decorate an old chair using one of the suggested options:

• Decorating with fabric. This decoration option is considered the simplest, because it is enough just to drag old soft places or sew covers. You can use a similar approach to update other interior items.
• Back update. You can decorate the back using the decoupage technique or lining with some interesting fabric, such as denim. Any novice master will be able to figure out how to sheathe a chair with a back with his own hands, and this work will not take much time.
• Upholstery lining. It is important to choose a durable and high-quality fabric. It can be tapestry, jute, jacquard. In some cases, even velor is suitable.

Important! Tapestry upholstery gives the best result, since it is a reliable material that looks quite attractive on the outside.

• Decor with macrame. Even if you have never done this type of weaving before, you will succeed. You can do this: if the back of the old chair is soft, then remove the upholstery, then weave a simple mesh with a square section. You can independently adjust the size of the cells.
• Decoupage. This technique allows you to make a real decoration for your home from an old chair. It is enough to buy special paper or napkins, transfer the drawings to the surface of the chair and fix everything on top with a layer of varnish.
• Coloring. How to paint a wooden chair is a question that interests many. In principle, any paint and varnish composition intended for wooden coatings is suitable for this. In terms of choosing a color, everyone here is already determined independently, because a lot depends on the prevailing color scheme in the room and other interior items.

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That's how many ways there are to restore old furniture, each of them is effective and good in its own way. Which one to choose is up to you, because you can’t forget about your own desires and preferences.