Do-it-yourself chair restoration

An old chair, inherited from a grandmother, with wiped upholstery, peeling varnish, can become an interior gem if you put your hands on it. To cope with this task, you need to familiarize yourself with the technique of restoration work, arm yourself with the necessary tools and be patient. Consider the stages of turning a used piece of furniture into a luxurious rarity, dear to the heart as the memory of loved ones.

There are various approaches for updating old furniture. Restoration is a classic approach, which involves the restoration of the original appearance of the object with all the same characteristics.This method is used if you want to restore a valuable piece of furniture in its original form. It assumes a rather complicated technique that will require the use of special purpose chemicals to restore the coating, carpentry work to eliminate functional malfunctions, it may be necessary to replace part of the wood or veneer.

This requires special skills and professional carpentry tools, the acquisition of special types of wood. Full restoration of chairs is justified for the purposes of collecting or damage to one of the items of an expensive headset. This is quite an expensive process, so it is better to entrust it to professionals.

If, for certain reasons, it is impossible to turn to the carpentry restoration workshop, repair of old chairs can be done at home with your own hands.

It is necessary to begin restoration work with the sequential execution of the following actions:

• First, we think over the design of the future piece of furniture, how it will look in the interior, what color it should be, what needs to be redone for ease of use.
• Then we disassemble the chair into its component parts, determine the degree of wear of the parts and the need to replace some elements, measure every detail.
• After that, we make an estimate of consumables by the size of the details of the chair, with this list we go to the store and get everything we need.
• Finally, replace worn parts and varnish or paint. If the chair retains its strength, it is enough just to repaint it to make a new piece of furniture. You can paint the old peeling baby high chair in a new bright color and paint it with an uncomplicated pattern, which the child will be incredibly happy about.

Determining the degree of deterioration of parts of the structure, it is necessary to stock up the necessary tools. Let's try to figure out what is required for repair.

To strengthen the frame, you will have to acquire a chisel, wood glue or PVA glue, wooden blocks to replace furniture spikes or spacers. Spikes are used to fasten frame parts.

If the legs of the chair are loose, the spikes need to be removed, smeared with glue and inserted into the structure, after which the elements should be fixed for several hours.At home, you can use a regular belt to tie parts.

Chairs can be coated with varnish, wood stain or paint. To remove a damaged coating, you need to sand the surface of the chair - it is not necessary to completely remove the old layer of paint or varnish, just align it. Here you will need sandpaper coarse and fine fraction or grinding machine. With a complete change of design is to use a special composition that dissolves the paint - technical acetone.

After completing the preparation of the frame for the new paint, you need to apply a primer under the paint - usually it is gray or white. Paint materials will be required. They are selected depending on the conditions of use, whether this item will be exposed to adverse effects from moisture, steam or sun. The instruction is attached to each dyeing agent. After reading it, choose the right one.

Before coating varnish for the preservation of wood, it is treated with stain, wax or oil. These furniture products come in a variety of colors that match the different colors of natural wood.After covering the frame of a wooden chair with a stain of the desired color, water-based should be followed by a layer of lacquer; when using wood-based stain, varnish coating is optional.

Next, you have to decide what will be the seat trim. If this is a hard seat, then paint the same rules as the frame. If you have to do a soft seat, you need to stock up with foam rubber and upholstery fabric. Here is useful furniture stapler with suitable size brackets. The fabric can be fixed with the help of special furniture nails and a hammer.

When working with a spring unit, it may be necessary to replace the springs or the entire unit. It is necessary to inquire in advance whether these materials are for repair or whether the strategy needs to be changed and the springs in favor of foam rubber should be abandoned.

The connection scheme of the chair is well known, it is not difficult to disassemble the structure yourself. First, the back and rear legs are unscrewed. The assembly of the chair occurs in reverse order, then all the grooves will fall into place. If the chair is attached to the glued spikes, it is necessary to melt the joints with hot water - for this, apply a hot wet cloth several times or use a steam generator.

The found cracks are poured with a mixture of sawdust and glue, or are glued and tightened to fix until dry. In the event of damage to spiked joints, new plugs are made to replace old ones, and a thorn-groove and splicing fastener is used to strengthen the tsargovyh joints. It is necessary to drill a thin hole to the spike and pour glue into the syringe, fix it until it dries. If the legs are inserted into special grooves in the bottom of the chair and the chair staggers, then the legs are removed and the upper part is wedged, it becomes larger and more densely enters the groove.

If the highchair is updated, in addition to the above, it may be necessary to replace the hinges or the rotary mechanism for the transformation. Most of the wooden children's highchair consists of a large number of parts that ensure the safety of the child. Not bad them once again glue carpentry glue for durability.

When disassembling a folding chair, it is enough to remove the axial pins connecting the back back and seat and unscrew the seat. The chairs on the metal frame are simply unscrewed; for models with cast-frame, only the seat and the soft part of the backrest are unscrewed.

The seat of a chair can be equipped with the spring block. The unit itself does not need to be dismantled and torn from the base, if necessary, replace the individual springs.

So, at the first stage, our chair is disassembled, structural damage is eliminated, the old paintwork is removed, and you can start the update directly.

In the second stage, apply a primer to the cleaned surface that corresponds to the type of material being painted. After it dries, it should be re-processed with sandpaper of a finer size. Then we apply the first layer of paint or varnish and after drying we check - if the base shines through, put another one or two layers.

Each material has its own characteristics when painting. Iron frames are applied to the frames of the first layer with a corrosion-resistant primer, after drying the base color is applied, and if the paint is transparent, then it is applied in stages in two or three layers. When painting metal chairs, it is better to use metal enamels.

The frame of the wooden chair is initially waxed, applying a little means to the piece of rags and carefully rubbing it into wood, or brushing it with an oil primer. Following impose one or more layers of acrylic paint.These new generation coatings are convenient to use, odorless, dry quickly, and suitable for indoor use.

To restore the Viennese chairs, use a lacquer coating on a wax base or on a primer.

For plastic chairs, painting is undesirable, since the flexibility of the material will provoke paint peeling, it is better to sew covers or pillows on them from a suitable fabric.

Finally, in the last stage, you need to update the upholstery of the soft parts of the chair. After the old upholstery has been removed, foam rubber of the desired thickness is cut in the shape of the seat base, it can be fixed with glue. The fabric is cut out taking into account the allowance for hemming around foam rubber with plywood.

With a furniture stapler on the reverse side, the fabric is first fixed on opposite sides so that it is tightly stretched, then the corners are folded back to back, folded over the base and fixed with brackets in several places on the reverse side, so that the fabric does not crease. It is better to use fabric with a floral print or monophonic. Geometric pattern requires a special arrangement of lines. There may be a skewing pattern, so there need skill.

When hauling seats with springs, first wadded or other dense material is laid, then a layer of foam rubber. The fabric is cut out and attached using the same technology as with one foam, however, it is important to tighten the upholstery more strongly in order to smooth out the relief of the springs.

When the frame of the chair is updated and the soft parts are tied with a new upholstery, it remains only to assemble the structure. The basic rule is to assemble in the same order as they were disassembled. The legs and back parts must be installed in the same grooves where they were originally, so the design will not lose strength. The plywood on which the seat is attached is usually screwed to the frame, in Vienna chairs glue acts as a fixer.

Knowing all the stages of the restoration of the chair, it is not difficult to create a stylish and unique object with the help of finishing from an unattractive piece of furniture. Just by painting the chairs in pink, blue, and pistachio colors, you can get a bright color accent of the interior in the fusion style.

When updating old chairs, decoupage technique is used. This operation is performed with glue, varnish and paper-based design; it is convenient to use napkins.The paper with the selected pattern is cut or torn to pieces, then with the help of glue these fragments are fixed on the frame and the seat, after drying they are varnished. As a result, this piece of furniture is completely transformed and becomes an art object.

In modern interiors, designers often use one or two antiqued items. For this purpose, chairs of vintage designs are required. At first they are painted with white paint, then a thin translucent layer of gold, bronze or silver paint is applied to the entire chair or its individual parts, depending on the environment and the finish of the whole interior. The final stage is a layer of varnish-craquelure. It creates small cracks throughout the entire coating, giving it a luxurious patina of antiquity.

These chairs can be decorated in the style of "Empire." The frame, painted white, is painted with gold paint on the carving, on smooth elements you can copy the appropriate pattern with a pencil and paint on this pattern with gold paint. The seat in this case is covered with a fabric with glitter - satin, brocade, velvet. The composition is very effective.

Popular today is the style of Provence.The frame is painted in several different layers. For example, first green, on top of white. The top layer is overwritten with coarse-grained sandpaper, so that the green base appears through here and there, then it is covered with blue, again rubbed with emery paper. Next comes the white layer again using sandpaper. This creates a multi-layer effect.

This method is used to artificially age the object, to create the impression of long-term use and faded color. For the upholstery of soft parts suitable light fabric with a floral pattern. You can also make covers from this fabric or pillows.

At home, traditionally, a stool serves as a seating area. It should also be issued in a new way. To impart a national flavor, patchwork technique has proven itself well. In this case, fabric cuts that are of suitable design are purchased, and it is better to dispose of the garments that serve themselves. Fabrics are cut into patches and combined so that the pattern does not merge, and they glue over the legs and the seat of the stool. From above everything is varnished.

Choosing a chair design, you should take advantage of the whole palette of your imagination or look at the already existing models in art catalogs.

• The bright drapery of the old chairs made very stylish and luxurious boho style chairs.
• Kitchen dining group will play with new bright colors after a bold restoration of old chairs

• Gentle mint and beige tones are suitable for shebbi-chic interiors, especially since the base is really aged with time.

How to restore the chair with your own hands, see the next video.