$15 Craigslist Chairs

May 17, 2011 /

A couple of months ago I purchased a set of chairs from Craigslist.  These chairs had been used in a medical office, so they were in pretty good condition, but the fabric was horrible and the chairs had been painted yellow.  I knew right away they had great potential, somewhere in our home, so for $15, I couldn’t pass them up!  One benefit of redoing these chairs was that they had minimal upholstery fabric, which meant less work for me.

We decided to turn our front living room into a library/music room, so these chairs will work perfectly at our ‘library’ table.  My wonderful husband took the difficult job of stripping the wood, sanding, staining, and finishing.  My task was cutting the fabric out, stapling the fabric to the chair, and admiring our handiwork.

Enjoy some photos of the before, the process, and the finished product:

Before

Fabric and Cushion Removed

 Bradley used all of these products to finally get the yellow paint off.

One coat of paint on the left chair.
Finished Product.

Fabric detail.  I love linen!

I was so excited when I took the old piping off to discover that it had been hot glued in!  This part was super easy!

Love the contrast of dark wood and light fabric. 

Here is a breakdown of my costs for this from scratch project:
Chairs – $15 for both chairs
Fabric – FREE!!  A friend had given me some designer fabric leftover from her yard sale last year
Stain – Free (already had this)
Staples – Free (already had them)
Polyurethane – Free (already had this)

Disclaimer:  Remember that upholstery tool my husband bought for me?  You can read about it here.  So, if you want to include that in the cost for these chairs, go ahead, but I prefer to leave it out!  That tool will be put to use in many projects to come, so I think I’ll just stick with saying that these chairs cost $15.

We hit some snags along the way:  the previous paint color took several coats of stripper and sanding before it finally came off; my husband said the stain was dry so I put the seat cushion in and it definitely was not dry, evidenced by stain all over my newly recovered seat; we had to purchase a new tool (not really a problem, but it made the project last longer); I went to finish the very last step and realized that an entire section of the chair didn’t have stain on it!

Even with all of these challenges, our chairs are done and I LOVE them!

I’m linking this up on My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia.  Be sure to check out Kristin’s blog!
Also linking up on Feathered Nest Friday, over at Courtney’s French Country Cottage.

7 Comments

  • sherri lynn

    May 17, 2011 at 1:40 pm

    These look SO good! I can’t believe the transformation. I’m going to need to come back to your house because it will be so different with all of these projects you’re finishing!

  • Keith/Susan

    May 17, 2011 at 2:18 pm

    The chairs look great!! You guys did such a good job with this project! I’m with you, I like the contrast of the dark wood and light fabric. And I would love to see a picture of the whole room (with or without the girls standing on the piano keys!!)

  • Kristin

    May 18, 2011 at 3:21 am

    These look great! Nicely done, once again. I like that you and Bradley can both contribute to these projects. It’s cool that you’re both talented like that and enjoy doing such things together- how rewarding!

  • Anonymous

    February 13, 2013 at 5:55 pm

    Greetings! This is my first visit to your blog!
    We are a group of volunteers and starting a new project in a community in the same niche.
    Your blog provided us useful information to work on.

    You have done a outstanding job!

    Have a look at my web blog: shared web hosting works