4 super-ways to transform stools and stools with your own hands

Reasons for manually renewing old chairs or decorating new ones can be great. This is the need to adapt furniture to the interior, the desire to correct design flaws, to restore the chairs that were inherited from my grandmother or found for nothing at a flea market. In this article we will tell you about 4 ways how to transform "four-legged friends" (including office and garden chairs) beyond recognition, and also imagine 70 cool photo-ideas of alterations.

See also: 3 simple ways how to update the kitchen set

Method 1. Dyeing of a chair

Even the most old-fashioned or simply ordinary chair, for example, "Viennese" wooden, plastic, folding or office, can be transformed by staining. The main thing here is to choose the right color. Here are some inspirational examples, when one color alone saved furniture from moving to a landfill.

Some more examples of alteration of the most common Viennese chairs from bent beech, which are found almost in every house or cottage.

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And here are some cool ideas for painting stools.

Are you inspired? Then let's get down to practice!

For staining the chair you will need:

• The paint is acrylic, and preferably chalky in one or several colors;
• Synthetic flat brushes (separately for primer, paint and varnish);
• Protective gloves (it is better to buy in a pharmacy);
• Primer wood / metal (depending on the material of the frame);
• Wax or matt varnish (polyurethane or acrylic);
• Sandpaper medium and fine grain.

How to paint your own chair:

1. Prepare a stool for painting: wash it from coarse dirt and dust, then sand with medium-grained sandpaper to remove the top layer of the old varnish or paint. The surface should be slightly rough.

• If you want to update the metal chair, then it is not necessary to coat it (although it is more reliable after all polish the upper gloss), but before the priming / painting the skeleton must be degreased white spirit.
• Also, to avoid a tedious stage of sanding, you can, if you use chalk paint, but without a primer you will not get by.
• If your stool is varnished, then it can be removed with a special means for washing the varnish.

1. If the stool is damaged, for example, scratches, chips and cracks, fill them with furniture putty.

1. Wipe the stool from the dust, wait for it to dry out and apply two coats of primer to the whole frame, letting each layer dry for about a day. Between the layers it is desirable to sand the primer with fine-grained sandpaper (220 #).
2. Take a new brush and color the stool in 2-3 layers, letting each layer dry completely. Take care that the paint does not form stains.

• If you want to paint a chair with an effect of scuffing, then first on some places (for example, on the edges of the seat, backrest and armrests), it is necessary to apply a dark paint, say, dark gray or dark blue, and then cover them waxing. Next, paint the stool with the main paint in 2-3 layers. And, at last, having slightly worked a fine-grained skin to expose a dark "substrate".

• Want to achieve the effect of an ideal factory painting? Then be patient: every coat of primer and paint (except for the finishing layers) will have to be covered with fine-grained sandpaper. So the coating will be as flat and reliable as possible.
• To paint only individual parts or details of a chair, use a paint tape.

1. Treat the chair with wax or matte varnish. Voila, your "four-legged friend" has found a new life!

It is better to understand how to paint an old chair with your hands this video-master class will help you.

Method 2. Seat-tightening

Most often, if the chair has a soft seat, then the carcass staining is not enough to update it completely - you need to change the upholstery. Here are a few photo-examples of how a seat waist can turn an old chair into a stylish piece of decor.

By the way, if your chair or stool does not have a soft seat, you can do it yourself: first cut out the base from MDF exactly in the shape of the seat, then following our master class, take it and, finally, screw it onto the screws to the frame chair.

To make a soft seat for a stool, just glue the foam directly to the base, and then tighten it with a cloth, clogging the stapler staples on the inside of the seat.

For work you will need:

• Antisteppler (or its alternative);
• Furniture stepper and staples not more than the thickness of the seat base;
• The cloth;
• Foam is about 4 cm thick;
• Batting or sintepon;
• Scissors;
• Knife-seriter for bread (with teeth);
• Screwdriver.

How to update the upholstery of your chair:

1. First we need to take the seat out of the chair frame with a nail or screwdriver.
2. Remove the old upholstery with an anti-stapler and remove the filler if it is dilapidated (if it is in good condition, then it can be reused). Next, wipe the base of the seat from dust and dirt.

• If the wooden seat base seems to you too old and unreliable, use it as a template to cut a new seat from the plywood.

1. We put on the foam seat, circle its outline and cut it out.

1. Krom fabric and batting in such a size that they could wrap all sides of the seat (along with foam rubber), leaving a free 10-15 cm. These surpluses are needed to make it easier to stretch the material.
2. So, we got four blanks: the base, foam rubber, batting / sintepon and fabric. Now we need to put it all in a sandwich. The first thing is spreading the batting, we put foam rubber on it, and on the foam - the base of the seat with the wrong side up. Then simply bend the edges of the batting on the seat and, slightly pulling the material, fix it with a stapler. The corners of the batting can be cut off, or you can simply fold it and fasten it.

1. After all the batting is attached to the seat, cut off its excess.

• If desired, the foam can be glued to the base or stitched around the perimeter, stepping back 5 mm from the edge of the seat.

1. The most important moment has come - the stage of the constriction of sitting with a cloth. Spread the matter upside down and put a seat on it. Then bend the edges of the fabric along one side and fix it with a stapler. Now lightly stretch the fabric on the opposite side of the seat and also fix it with a stapler.

Repeat the procedure from the remaining two sides and proceed to the design of the corners - they need to be wrapped as shown in the photo below.

1. We return seat to the place and fix it with "native" fasteners.

A more visual masterclass of the upholstery of the seat of the old chair is shown in this video.

Method 3. Decoupage chair with paper

Do you want to decorate a chair with a cool print or disguise drawings with small defects like scratches and stains? This can be done with the help of decoupage techniques.

You will need:

• Any paper with the desired print, for example, it can be multi-layer napkins, pages from magazines and books, geographic maps, posters, wallpaper, etc .;
• PVA glue;
• Brushes 2 pieces (for applying glue and varnish);
• Scissors;
• Clear matt lacquer acrylic or polyurethane;
• Water (if necessary);
• Roller for working with large formats.

How to update the chairs in the technique of decoupage:

Step 1.Clean the stool from dirt and stains, if necessary, color, following the first instruction in the article.

Step 2.Cut out the fragment that you need from the selected polygraphy. The workpiece can be as large (for example, in the shape of the seat and back), and very small.

• If you use napkins, you first need to separate the top layer with the pattern and then cut it out.
• If you want to paste the entire chair, including the legs, the paper should be chaotically broken into small pieces of about 10 × 10 cm, as shown in the next photo slider.

• For decoupage of the backrest and seat, they must be removed from the chair frame with a screwdriver, and then used as a template for cutting the workpiece (see Fig. photo below).

Step 3.Lend abundantly the place that you want to decorate with PVA glue and attach your drawing to it, then level with a brush with the remnants of glue, releasing all the air bubbles and smoothing the folds.

• If the cut print is small, then it is better not to apply glue to the stool, but to the reverse side of the blank itself.
• If the paper is very dense, then it should be slightly moistened in water - so it will become more plastic.

• The top layer of glue is optional, but often desirable (in any case it should be thin).

Step 4.Repeat step 3 with the other parts of the stool and leave the glue to dry for about a day.

Step 5.Cover the decorated areas or the entire chair with a transparent varnish in 4 layers, letting each layer dry completely. Done!

Method 4. Decoupage chair with a cloth

It would seem that it is still possible to radically change the chair with your own hands, except by means of painting. In fact, there is another cool way - decoupage by cloth.

• The chair, updated in this way, will serve surprisingly long even under heavy loads. And if from the fabric around the edges of the chair separate threads will be knocked out, you can simply cut them and process with a layer of PVA glue.

You will need:

• The cloth;
• Wooden chair;
• Glue PVA or special glue for decoupage;
• Sharp clerical or mock knife;
• Brush for applying glue.

How to update the chair in the technique of decoupage:

Step 1.Use a screwdriver to remove the backrest and seat from the chair. If you want to paint a chair, do this before you disassemble it.

Step 2.Spread the cloth on a flat surface, put a seat on it and circle it around the contour, stepping about, cm from the edge, then cut out the workpiece.

Step 3.Cover the outside of your seat with PVA glue, then put a cloth on it and smooth it. Once the fabric has been leveled, cover it with PVA glue and leave to dry for the night.

Step 4.When the fabric dries, make sure it is absolutely stiff. Further cut off excess fabric with a sharp knife just at the edges of the seat.

Step 5.Now again treat the perimeter of the seat with PVA glue to prevent wear at the edges.

Step 6.Repeat steps 2-5 with the back of the chair and other details that you want to decorate, and finally collect the chair back. The main condition for the successful restoration of the chair - the pattern must accurately repeat the shape of the decorated surface.

Here are a few more photo ideas for decorating the chair with a cloth.

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