Cane Chair Reupholster DIY
Nothing like a great tutorial to get you through a hard project! This is a great post on how to reupholster that old cane chair you’re not quite sure what to do with! Make it “brand” new with this chair reupholster DIY tutorial!
Submitted By: Peacefully Home
Above all else, my desire is for my life to bring God glory and make Him known to others. I am blessed to be married to my best friend, a loving, patient, and Godly man. I am also a friend, sister, aunt and currently a caregiver to children with special needs.
I enjoy decorating, DIY, crafts, cooking, organizing, and overall just “managing” my home. Over the past couple of years I have discovered the pure joy of making my home peaceful for all who enter. My hope is that I can help you make your home a little more peaceful as well.
You can also read more about me and why I started this blog in my post An Introduction.
More projects by Peacefully Home here: DIY Picture Ledge DIY Envelope Pillow in 10 Steps Old Window Turned Mirror
There’s nothing quite like admiring and enjoying a DIY project that turns out to be a beautiful addition to your home! Refinishing this cane chair that belonged to my husband’s parents started out as a joke. They had a pair of them in their basement and I knew I could turn them into something wonderful, but my husband did not have the same vision.
Once we knew we were buying a house in the spring, I started doing some research to prove my point (that I could make these chairs into something we’d want to have in our living room). After mentioning that I wanted the chairs severaltimes over the course of the next few months, and after showing Josh pictures of other refinished chairs, he realized that they did have potential. The chairs had won him over!
My mother-in-law had mentioned that she would like to help me and that she had previously refinished the chairs with her mom and grandmother. So, a few weeks ago when my husband was gone on a business trip, she came to visit and we refinished one of the chairs to use in our living room. It was so much fun and I am so happy with the results.
Here is what the chair looked like before:
The first thing we did was take the upholstered parts of the chair apart so we could see how it went together. We made some notes on how the pieces were attached so that we could remember when we put it back together. The very back piece was stapled in, but the seat back was stapled at the bottom and then hot glued around the rest of the edges.
I wanted the chair to be a cream color, so we wiped it down with mineral spirits, and then primed with Kilz spray paint primer. This was the first time I had used this primer, and wow, this stuff covers! I loved the coverage of Kilz, but for some reason the chair had a fine dust all over it afterwards. I am not sure why this was, but next time I will use fine sandpaper to sand after priming.
After the chair was primed, we painted it with Rust-Oleum’s Painter’s Touch in Heirloom White. Although I tried my best to cover everything with one can of paint, I had to use most of a second one to get the coverage I wanted.
I love this paint color and it made this chair beautiful!
(I had to go back and touch-up the paint after this picture was taken)
While the paint was drying, we worked on the upholstery of the seat. We purchased 2 yards of upholstery fabric so that we would have plenty of fabric to line up the pattern on the seat and seat back. Using the old fabric that covered the chair as our pattern, we placed each section on the fabric (over center of the portion of the fabric pattern we wanted), and cut out each piece. We also cut out two strips of the fabric for the piping on the front of the seat and around the edge of the seat back.
We then sewed two seams, one on each corner of the front of the seat. We also made the piping by folding the strip of the fabric over the piping and sewing all the way down, as close to the piping as possible. To cover the seat, we pulled the fabric tight, stapled around the edges on the underside and then hammered the staples down.
Next we stapled the fabric to the very back of the chair. The sides we stapled and then folded over, but along the top and bottom we simply stapled. We also hammered in all of these staples.
The seat back had buttons previously, but for a more modern look I wanted it to be plain. I had seen online that you could fill the button holes of the foam with batting instead of buying new foam. This worked wonderfully to make the seat back smooth.
Then came the most difficult part, adding the seat back fabric. It probably didn’t help that it was also late in the evening and we had been working all day! After we laid the foam and fabric on top of the chair, we stapled the bottom of the piece of fabric to the chair.
The rest of the sides we trimmed down to the exact amount of fabric we needed (which was quite difficult) and hot glued them down into the trench that goes around the sides. We used a screw driver to push the fabric down into the trench. To finish it off, we hot glued the piping around the sides, again pushing it down into the trench.
Next we screwed the bottom of the seat back together. We also added a dust cover the bottom of the chair that we had cut using the shape of the old one. We simply stapled it as tight as we could to the bottom of the chair to keep out the dust bunnies.
Finally, we sat in the gorgeous new chair and admired all of our hard work!
Just for fun, here is the before and after:
Check out these other amazing chair reupholster projects!
Cassity Kmetzsch started Remodelaholic after graduating from Utah State University with a degree in Interior Design. Remodelaholic is the place to share her love for knocking out walls, and building everything back up again to not only add function but beauty to her home. Together with her husband Justin, they have remodeled 6 homes and are working on a seventh. She is a mother of four amazing girls. Making a house a home is her favorite hobby.
Great inspiration!
The new chair is really gorgeous!!!! Beautiful job
i’m sure that my folks had a pair of those chairs as well…(wonder where they are at now?). your “new” chair looks fabulous!! very nice job!
Well done! The “new” chair is stunning!
Where did you get this fabric?? Its beautiful!
(love your name!!! I’m on sure where it is from, hopefully the guest poster will answer!) Thanks!
What an awesome transformation! Thank you so much for sharing. I would have never thought to attempt a project like this. Thanks to you and other bloggers, I found a chair almost identical to yours and have already stripped it down and primed the frame. I just can’t decide which fabric to use (story of my life). I love your website, I have gotten a lot of ideas from you. Thank you again, you have been a wonderful inspiration!
Good Luck with your chair! I hope it is fun and makes you proud!
thanks for this tutorial , I have had a pair of these in my possesion for three or more years because the back part totally stumped me and now I know how to do it ….many thanks
Chris
How did you re-do the piping?
I have that exact same chair (but with velvet orange fabric)! I’ve been wanting to redo it, but scared. Thanks for this tutorial because it turned out so amazing, so I hope mine does too.
You’re welcome! We’d love to see pictures when you do — message us over on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/Remodelaholic
Hi! I love your chair. So much, in act I am redo a similar one. I was wondering what the fabric was that you used?
Hi Kemi! This is a post from a guest, so I’m not sure about the fabric. But you can click over to her blog (linked up toward the top) and ask there. Thanks!
Hi! Thanks for sharing this tutorial! I’m about to embark on one of my own with almost the EXACT same chair. Mine has the cane material for the entire back, including where yours has fabric, but I’d like to take the center portion out (as it is in disrepair) and put fabric back there like yours. I wanted to know, is there metal in the back or just foam? I’m not sure if I need to put anything sturdier in the back or if I can just do what you did with putting the fabric in the outside back, layer foam, and fabric over the inside back.
Hi Lindsay! This tutorial is from a guest so I’m afraid I can’t answer your question… but if you’ll click over to the original author’s blog (linked toward the top of the post) then she will hopefully be able to answer your question. Thanks!
Sweet! Just in time! I have two of these exact chairs!
Wahoo! We’d love to see what you do with them!
love these chairs. I have now done 3!
links to my interest:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/f4/49/55/f449557e154595d66258a7d79e456ab8.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/24/cf/73/24cf73326da74978b16d788d2d641b48.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/8c/e9/3f/8ce93f22f91a0202e1ca70c8dfd392e0.jpg
Thank you for sharing, Gloria! Great job!
I have two chairs that had rattan backs I want to make them see they I want to use heavy plastic what can I use and what kind of glue
Hi Melissa,
I’m afraid I don’t have any experience or suggestions for you. It sounds like a creative project, though, so I hope you can figure it out!
I am attempting to reupholster the same chair. I got the back done but the seat is tricky. Did you use a manual staplegun? My staples are not going far enough into the area around the seat where the previous staples were.
Hi Julie,
I wish I could help, but this post is from a guest, so I don’t have the experience or know-how to answer your question or really be helpful :/ But you can click on the link toward the top of the post to go to the author’s blog and ask there.