His Trash, Her Treasure: Dumpster Dining Room Chair

As I was walking my dog down the street last week, I spotted this super rad chair. So I took it! I knew right then and there that it would go perfect in my dining room, all it needed was a little love.

Now when you’re under going any project you’re going to need some various tools. Here’s what was on my list:

• Hammer
• Turpentine (optional for cleaning)
• Staple gun
• ½ yard of fabric (Try to use a heavier fabric such as upholstery fabric.)
• 1 can of spray paint
• Staple lifter (Optional, the claw on the back of a hammer will also work.)
• Screwdriver
• Sanding tool and/or sandpaper
• A Saturday afternoon
• A boy (Optional, for his tools and the shit you don’t want to do.)

This time I chose a very simple chair to work with, and if you have never done this before, I suggest you do the same.

Step One:
Start the chair make over by taking the chair apart. I unscrewed the seat from the frame and set it aside. If you pulled your chair out of a dumpster and its exceptionally dirty, take a cloth with turpentine on it and wipe it down (make sure to wear gloves!).  Mine was only a little dirty so I skipped that part.

Step Two:
Next, take the sanding tool and sand the wood down a bit to clean it up. I took a smaller grit sandpaper to smooth the wood out some. I prefer my furniture to have a little extra character and not be perfect, so I purposely did a half-ass job on this part.

Step Three:
Spray paint. Yay! I love spray paint! Make sure when you’re spray painting that you do several coats with even strokes. You are going to need to have patience here, you do not want drippies all over the place.

Step Four:
While the first coat is drying go ahead and took out the staples from the seat. Once I was done removing all of the staples, the first coat of paint had dried.

Step Five:
Spray painted the second coat now.

Step Six:
As the last coat of paint is drying start making the pattern for the chair. Here I took the seat and laid it on the new fabric. Cut it with enough room to pull to the back to staple, about 2-3 inches bigger than the seat all around.

Step Seven:
Now it’s time to start stapling! Make sure that you pull the fabric tight and even. You want to staple down the center of each side first and work from the middle out. That way all the slack will be in the corners and you can use it to fold nicely.

Step Eight:
Once again, I prefer my furniture to look worn, so I only did two coats of paint. Feel free to do an extra coat or two based on your preference. After the paint has dried, you can start putting the chair back together. Just set the seat back onto the chair and screw it in where it was before.

Now if you followed these steps correctly you should have a pretty new chair for your dinner table. Voila!

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