Not Fit For The Tip - Upcycled Chair Before And Afterfeatured

If you caught a recent blog post of mine, Not Fit For The Tip - Can I Upcycle This Abandoned Chair?, you’ll know that a couple of months ago I stumbled upon a broken chair left outside a student house in Fallowfield. The leg was hanging off, some of the wooden bits that hold the legs together were missing, and the cushion was definitely in need of some TLC.

The chair was left in even worse condition when someone threw it down the stairs and into the basement of my boyfriend’s student house in the middle of the night, causing part of the back of the chair to snap off. The person responsible apologised the next morning when he realised what he had done, so it wasn’t the end of the world. Besides, if anything it just made the challenge that bit more interesting, and fixing the back of the chair turned out to be the most fun part.

Back when I was a student, my housemates decided to hurl a perfectly good TV down the stairs unaware that I was just about to walk through the front door. Gonna be honest, if I’d arrived home a few seconds earlier I probably wouldn’t have lived to tell the tale. But anyway, I digress. Despite the damage to the chair, I was not deterred and I took it back to my parents’ house so that we could breathe new life into the old girl.

And now it’s time for the big reveal, and a run down of what we did to fix what probably would have just ended up in landfill.

So here the chair is before we did anything with it. Doesn’t look so bad, ey?

Oh no, there we go. As you can see, the back of it wasn’t looking so pretty.

And two of the supporting pieces of wood were missing. You can’t tell in this picture but the leg closest to us was hanging off when I found it. Clearly someone had tried to glue it, but all it needed was screwing back in. The screw that held it in place was twisted and so the first thing we did was pull it out with some pliers and replace it with a brand new one.

Thankfully, I still had the piece of wood that was missing from the back of the chair. If I hadn’t had that piece, I think it’s safe to say this wouldn’t have been worth bothering with.

First thing’s first we added tons of glue to the broken part of the chair.

Fitted like a glove!

We applied a few layers of masking tape to the sides to protect the wood from the g-clamps.

This side wasn’t looking its best either, but thankfully we were able to unscrew the knob at the top and drip some glue into the cracks before clamping it together like the other side.

Then we just had to wait a few hours for it to dry. After polishing off a couple of episodes of The Walking Dead, I returned to the chair to see how it was getting on…

We ended up waiting a whole 24 hours to ensure it was completely dry and to minimise the chances of the wood breaking off again. When we did remove the clamps, it was looking pretty good by this point. Although you could see a very thin crack running down the side, it was pretty firmly glued and nothing a few coats of paint couldn’t fix.

The next job was to unscrew the metal heart from the back of the chair. I originally wanted to leave the heart exactly how it was, but it had gone a little rusty in some parts and so we decided it needed a bit of lovin’.

Once the heart was unscrewed we started to sand the chair down. At first I just used some trusty sandpaper, before my Dad went and found his electric sander to make the job that little bit easier. I wasn’t allowed to use it though… so after taking a couple of photos I popped back inside for a hot chocolate and some more Walking Dead.

Ta da!

Next we took a trip to a DIY shop to find some pieces of wood to replace the missing supports between the legs. Thankfully, we were able to unscrew one of the legs so we could take that with us to compare it against the pieces of wood in the shop.

We couldn’t get an exact match, but were able to sand down a couple of millimetres off each end so that we could fit them into the holes.

A bit of glue on each end and one step closer towards completion.

The next step was my favourite bit, painting it. Not much to say here really. After adding the first coat of primer we sanded it down, I decided to paint it white partly because it’s versatile and should fit well in any room of my future house no matter how I decorate it. Also, we already had half a tub of white paint in the cellar and so I decided to finish that off rather than paying for a new tub. Standard cheapskate behaviour, really. After priming it, I used undercoat and then glossed it.

Here the chair is after one coat.

Although the heart from the back of the chair was originally black and I would have liked to keep it that way, in order to keep costs low I decided to use up some white spray paint we already had knocking around the house. I think in order for you to make an upcycling project worth it, you really need to make the most of what you’ve already got.

Here the chair is once we reattached the heart. What a beaut!

I found this gorgeous fabric in a haberdashery in Manchester’s Northern Quarter and decided it would look lovely for the chair’s seat cushion.

We drew around the cushion once placed on the fabric and then added an extra 3 inches before cutting around the outside with some pinking shears (or as I like to call them, zigzag scissors). These are the best scissors to use if you want to prevent the material from fraying.

Stapling the fabric to the cushion was easily the most stressful part of this whole upcycling project because it was vital that we didn’t get any creases in the material. We also had to be make sure that the pattern was straight.

The more hands the better!

Next we had to locate the holes where the screws had originally been so that we could firmly attach the seat back on the chair.

We couldn’t simply put the screws straight in the cushion, as the screw had to go through the underneath of the chair frame. It didn’t take too long to attach it though.

Hey presto!

Remember how part of the back of the chair had broken off after someone threw it down the stairs? Well, you’d never suspect a thing now!

She’s so beautiful! Have to say I’m pretty proud of my first upcycling effort, but as you can probably tell from the photos, it would have taken me a lot longer if it wasn’t for the help of my parents.

Hopefully this is just the first of many upcycling projects. When I eventually get my own house, I love the idea of filling it with loads of upcycled furniture, but then again, considering how long this took, maybe I’m best off just popping to Ikea…

I’ll leave you with my top tips for a great first upcycling project:

• If possible, use something free. That way if it goes wrong, it’s not the end of the day or a waste of money
• Remember that time is money. If you spend five solid weekends upcycling something that could have cost you twenty quid to buy new in Ikea, it’s probably not the type of project you should embark on regularly
• Use up old paint, sandpaper, fabrics
• To save money, you could use old curtains or an old dress for the seat cover
• Any fabric left over could be used to make matching cushions
• Try to borrow as many tools as possible if you don’t have them already
• Make sure you think carefully about what you’re going to do
• If you get stuck or feel like something is going wrong, take a break, ask a friend, or have a look online for help. There’s no point in panicking and ruining it. Be patient.

Have you ever upcycled anything? If so, I’d love to hear from you and see your creations. Let me know in the comments below!