I have been searching for the perfect chair to reupholster. I wanted some kind of Louis XVI (is that a 16? Whatever, you know what mean) Frenchy-looking chair with ornately carved legs and a circular back. I see them ALL over NYC in stores, as part of the displays or decor. The chair is usually painted a funky color and upholstered with a modern print. Sometimes it is "shabby-chic-ified."
I can't find one of these chairs ANYWHERE. Well ok, that is a LIE but they are still $$$ and we all know my favorite price is FREE.
I purchased this chair at a garage sale for $5 bucks. I didn't even want it because it is ugly. The woman selling it wanted $15 and then when I looked uninterested she said $10! My mom wanted me to get it, but I was still like "meh." Then the woman said "FIVE BUCKS!" So I caved.
Here it is. In all it's red vinyl glory.
Good Bones? I hope! I liked the little decorative tacks and the detail on the front of the arms. Mostly, I liked that my mom said it would be easy to reupholster. (famous last words).
The next step is to carefully remove all of the fabric, or in this case the red vinyl. This is done by removing all of the tacks holding the fabric down. They make a special little tack remover tool, you can get them online or maybe at a craft store. The removers make the task go quicker and are shaped in a way to avoid gouging the wood as much as a screwdriver. I borrowed one from my mom's friend (Thanks Yvonne!). You can't just slice and dice the old fabric because you need the pieces to create your new pattern with the pretty new fabric that you carefully selected at Joann Fabrics to coordinate with but NOT matchy-match the yellow chairs you just created.
I am not an expert, but it is crucial to label the pieces as you remove them. The experts actually recommend that you take detailed notes, draw pictures or take photos Especially when it comes to little twitchy details like...I need to remember that they used a cardboard strip to secure the arm panels down.
The cotton batting inside the chair looked kind of gross, it was just disintegrating. I was relieved to see it was bug free and didn't smell weird or anything. I am going to use poly cotton batting and foam.
I removed all of the vinyl panels, the cotton batting and horsehair stuffing (kind of ew) and now the chair looks like this.
Next step is to do whatever you want to do (paint, sand, stain, varnish) to any wooden parts of the chair. I want to strip and restain the legs. I probably could just sand and revarnish them, but I wanted to try out of some these paint stripper products for future knowledge when I might strip paint from an entire chair.
Time for a product review! (cue music)
Citristrip claims to be a safer paint stripper and can be used indoors, which would come in handy if you were stripping crown molding or something you can't easily remove and bring outside. I used it outside because that is much much easier.
I can't judge Citristrip against other chemical products because this is my first time using this stuff. I did a bunch of reading on the internet to figure out what product to use. I would use this product again, but I would NOT buy the spray can because it goes all over the place. I would get the kind in a jug and apply it with a brush. I would also have put down some cardboard instead of getting orange goop all over the gravel driveway. It seems that the trick of these this stuff is to really glop it on. You want the product to stay wet. If it dries on whatever you are trying to take paint off of it will just harden and become another layer of stuff to remove.
Safety first people! Even thought it has a friendly orange smell and has the word "safer" on the can, this stuff is still a toxic chemical. You must wear special gloves that it can't eat through (Hardware stores will have those gloves on shelves near the strippers). You should wear eye goggles too. After all you are scraping and this stuff gets flicked around. You are supposed to use a special plastic scraper (safer for the wood) to remove the gunk, but I used a metal putty knife because that is what I had. Lastly, you can't scrap the goop into a plastic bag (it will eat through the plastic), so get a jar or a coffee can.
And have some rags on hand for quick clean ups.
I sprayed the Citristrip onto the legs and let it sit for 30 minutes, scraped and reapplied. In hindsight, I should probably have let it marinate longer.
The Citristrip looks like this at first.
Then it starts to bubble up and crack through the varnish.
I scraped all the goo off and dumped it into and old jar. Then I wiped down the legs with mineral spirits and steal wool to remove any Citristrip residue and sanded any rough patches. There is still quite a bit of stain left on the legs. I think it would come off with one more application and scraping but I'm going to leave it on because I'm restaining it the same color anyway.
Next up, creating the pattern and cutting the new fabric! With a special guest!
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