My $9.99 Louis Chairs - Upholstering & Staining The Frames

I’m not sure how many of you have ever upholstered a chair before, but I havn’t, so I thought it would be fun to see what all is involved in redoing a chair. Here is the pic of my inspiration and what I found at Goodwill. For $9.99 I figured even if I messed it up I didn’t have a lot invested, so why not give it a try.

This is what I started with. Great style and a wonderful price, but boy they are pretty ugly right now.

I figured I would just start taking the upholstery off and see how it was put together. Notice the cording on the floor on the left corner of the pic. That had to come off first, then I could see all the staples that held the seat fabric on. After removing what seemed like a million staples, This is what I found.

The top fabric was glued to some batting and then the foam and came off in one piece. This exposed the bottom piece of foam.

I took the cording off the back of the chair and found the same thing. After removing the staples, this also came off in one piece.

All that was left was the fabric on the back of the chair. You can see how it was stapled inside the back of the chair. I mean – really – they used about a million staples.

Now I had the whole chair apart, so time to sand it down so I could refinish the wood. This last piece of foam is just laying there, so I took it off too.

All sanded and ready for stain. I used my bullet orbital sander, so this went really fast. I didn’t have to take every bit of the old stain off, just get the shine and any nick and dings smoothed out a bit. (The rest of the seat construction was not touching any of the frame that would show, so I left that part all in tact.)

It is still really hot here so I decided to stain it in the guest room which has become a catch all. I am using General Finishes Antique Walnut Gel Stain. When you paint it on it is really thick and looks like mud. You let it set for just a few seconds then use a soft cloth to wipe it off. I just used an old tee shirt I cut into strips. Be sure to not let the stain set too long. If you do, then just paint some more on and it will loosen up the first coat and you can now wipe off as much as you want.

I had to bring them into the breakfast area where I had better light. I had to use two coats in spots, so just play with it until you get what you want. Just paint it on and wipe it off. These are not exactly the same color as my other chairs, but close enough, especially since I am going to use them in the dining room.

Frames with 1st coat of poly on them.

Remember how these started out. With those weird orange/blonde colored frames.

This shows the color of the stain. I really like how it turned out. The frames look aged with how the wood took the stain differently in certain spots.

They’ve been sanded and gone over with steel wool and now have the 2nd coat of poly on them. I am saying at this point they are done – done – done.

My game plan is musical chairs. I am going to use these 4 ladder-back side chairs in the breakfast area and use the two upholstered ones here with the two ladder-back arm chairs. We’ll see how that goes. I may recover the seats of the arm chairs.

I showed you these chairs that I was using as inspiration. Now I just need to figure out what fabric I want to use and how I want mine to look.

This is absolutely gorgeous.

So is this one.

and these too.

Ok, I’ve definitely decided that I want to do mine in a two fabrics. The seat and front of the chair in an ivory and the back in something with a pattern.

This is one possibility. It matches the seats of the ladderback armchairs.

This scroll pattern could be pretty on the back of the chair.

Or this is another possibility.

This could also be interesting. I want something that is neutral, but just not sure what.

Since my dining room and living room are all one long space, I want them to be eye catching but still go with anything. So I need to think about this for a minute.