Thrift store chair becomes inviting seat with vintage ties
DIY’er: Joanne Baumgart-Schellgell
Project: Chair makeover
Joanne Baumgart-Schellgell of Hilton Head Island is an artist and decorator who is always looking for unique ways to use and repurpose vintage items. For her latest project, she gave a thrift store chair a makeover using old ties.
I love to recycle and repurpose. There is a lot of satisfaction in giving discarded pieces a new life. For this project I repurposed a thrift store chair that was painted silver and had a black and white striped seat cushion.
Single chairs can be found very cheap at most yard sales and thrift stores. You can expect to pay anywhere from $10 to $45 depending on the age, condition, and style of the chair. Or, even better, look in your attic for an old abandoned chair to give new life.
After cleaning the chair and removing the seat, I gave it a base coat of gold paint. Then I used a brown chalk paint to cover as more of a wash to let the gold show through in places.
The wicker caning on the chair back reminded me of the old caned seats in canoes and the fish creel baskets of yesterday. So the theme of a fish for the seat came from that.
For years I have collected vintage ties, knowing some day I would be able to put them to good use. They can be found at estate sales, thrift stores and even in your relatives’ closets if you’re lucky. I wanted to highlight the tie with the fish and lures on it in the center. It’s colors are shades of brown, gold, blue and green. I coordinated the other ties by color and patterns to match this tie. This process takes a while to find the right ties to go together but is worth it in the end. It helps to pick and choose the exact ones you want by color and pattern. I used seven ties for the seat.
After choosing the ties, I hand sewn them together on the back. Then I added an iron-on fabric backer that I purchased at Joanne’s Fabric to make the piece sturdier. This is all cut to the seat size and stapled to the underside of the seat cushion. I covered the bottom with upholstery fabric and stapled it in place for a finished look. In all, I think the chair cost less than $50.
The chair is a great, fun, accent and conversation piece for any room. Mine will be used at our lake house.
This story was originally published June 19, 2015 at 2:05 PM with the headline "Thrift store chair becomes inviting seat with vintage ties."