My {not so} Glamorous Life: DIY Ugly Chair Re-do

When we moved into our house, my husband "inherited" a table and chairs for us. They were old and ugly, but fit our needs while I waited to get a better one. And when I say the set was old... I mean like, 1970's cane back chairs kind of old. And did I say ugly? Yeah, the set was ugly. BUT the quality of the furniture was great. Heavy, sturdy wood. I finally got my new-to-me (much more aesthetically pleasing) dining room set, so the ugly beast of a set got moved to the storage shed.
My Big Boy asked if he could keep one of the chairs to use as a desk chair. Ok, sure, if you want that ugly thing in your room, I don't care.
Then one day it occurred to me that I could make that chair look so much nicer. Duh! So I thought about fabrics for re-covering the cushion. And I thought about paint to cover the ugly wood.

Here is the Ugly Chair in question

I know that my Big Boy is very "cool" so the chair couldn't look like it belonged in a small kids room. Yet I wanted it to still be bright and cheerful. He likes black, but I vetoed that idea. He's got enough black in his room already.
So I went with red. A color we both like. And a color that The Hubs already had available for me. (This meant that I didn't have to buy any paint!) Then I went to the fabric store and perused the home decorating fabrics until I found one that worked for us. It was on sale super duper cheap. I think I paid $7.99 for it. So, with the paint already available and the fabric being super cheap, this chair re-do was a fabulously inexpensive project!! I LOVE INEXPENSIVE PROJECTS!!
So I got to work spray painting the chair. Nope, I didn't sand it. This is the "lazy girl's" DIY project... because, after all, the chair is already old and junky, and my kids are just going to destroy it. No, seriously, they will. They destroy things. Plus, the chair was so "used" that the wood didn't have much of a finish on it anyways.

The paint I used was the Rust-Oleum Painters Touch in Apple Red (Gloss). I like this one for a kiddo because since it's gloss, it's wipe-able. Also, it's an indoor/outdoor paint, so it's going to be a little more resilient. It's good stuff. I used about a can and a half.

After I completed the painting, I got on with covering the seat. I didn't tear off the old fabric, so I simply took the seat from the chair, tightly wrapped the fabric around it, and folded/trimmed where necessary. It was a cinch!

Chair pad and fabric set out on The Hub's work bench. Scissors & Staple Gun ready.

Folding technique on the corners

All wrapped and stapled.

Finished!!

After I finished putting the new fabric on the chair pad, I simply re-fastened the screws and had a chair that was much less ugly! (But that I still wont care too much if and when my kiddo destroys it!)


My re-done chair. There are still some holes in the caning, I'm trying to think of a fun way to cover them because it's not worth replacing. But otherwise, I love the way it turned out!! So does my Big Boy.