Chair Refurbishing

While shopping at the University of Washington's public surplus property sale (every Tuesday, link here), I found two old chairs that I really liked the look of. The wood was nice and sturdy, although the upholstery was quite ugly and old. For only $10 a piece, I decided to go ahead and get them, thinking I'd try reupholstering them.

Before:


It's pretty easy to reupholster a chair. You just unscrew the bottom, pop out the cushion and stretch new fabric over it. A seven dollar staple gun from Walmart was plenty powerful enough to tack the new fabric into place.

I thought at first I would sand and refinish the wood, but that was more work than I really wanted to do so I took the lazy way and just painted the wood instead.

After:


Now I have two beautiful new chairs! Not bad for a $20 investment. I can't wait for the next surplus property sale...