Reupholstered Desk Chair for the Kiddo

As seen in last week’s blog here, I finished transforming an old wooden desk into an art station for my three year old daughter. While I love the way the finished desk looks, I really needed a new chair to make it functional.

Note: yeah, I just couldn’t help myself to move it into my kiddo’s bedroom. It’s just adorable!

While roaming through the aisles of my recent favorite store (Goodwill), I found a wooden spindled chair with an old leather upholstered seat for $9. I thought it would be perfect to transform this chair since I would be able to change out the seat cover fabric with something modern to match her new bedroom.

So here’s the before, and after!

OK, here’s how the transformation took place:

The chair was actually in pretty good condition when I purchased it. While it was covered in some grime (probably used as a kitchen chair in its previous life), it was nothing that a little soap & water and sanding couldn’t fix.

I first took the leather upholstered seat off the chair base. The seat was attached with a couple of screws underneath the chair base, plus adhered with a hot glue around the seat rim.

Once the seat was fully removed, I clean the entire chair with soap and water, then lightly sanded with a light grade sand paper. I rewashed the chair base when I was complete with the sanding to make sure all of the dust was removed.

The empty seat base was the nastiest. There were old crumbs and dirt wedged into the nooks, but luckily some good ol’ scrubbing and disinfecting took care of the job.

I primed the entire chair with Zinnser Bull’s Eye 123 spray paint primer. I absolutely love this primer and suggest it for almost any project! It goes on smoothly and has wonderful coverage, especially when dealing with odd shaped like spindles.

I covered some of the chair base with two coats of primer since I knew it would get a lot of wear and tear, especially from a three year old!

Next I lightly sanded the primed chair to get the smoothest surface for my final coat. I chose Valspar’s semi gloss off white spray paint to cover the base of the chair. I used two coats and left it to dry overnight.

Now time to work on the upholstered seat! The current leather that covers the seat is actually placed quite well. I was afraid to take it off and lose some of the curvature of the current padding underneath so I decided to just upholster with my new fabric over the leather.

I chose a green geometric fabric from JoAnn Fabrics to cover the seat that has some accents of cream and pink. This perfectly goes with my daughter’s desk and either play room or bedroom, depending on where I finally decide to keep the desk! I purchased one yard on sale for $2.99.

To begin, I laid the fabric upside down on a flat surface and aligned the chair seat on top upside down as well. I played around with the placement until I had it perfectly centered. With the geometric pattern, it was easy; I just made sure the center of the chair had a row of the circles going straight down the middle.

I measured the new fabric for cutting, making sure I had enough to overlap and secure into place.

Starting with the straightest side of the chair seat, I folded over the fabric and used my staple fun to secure starting from the center and making my way out to the edges. I had to make sure the fabric was smooth and tight, often flipping over the chair seat to check my progress.

I repeated with the opposite side of the chair seat, firmly pulling as I went but making sure my pattern was staying centered.

To work with the rounded edges, I made sure that any folds in the fabric happened underneath the chair seat where no one would see it. Often I made tiny folds and stapled into place to make sure I had the smoothest cover possible.

I continued along the sides, pulling firmly along the way. I ran my hammer over all the staples when I was finished making sure everything was tightly secure, then trimmed all access fabric.

I decided to pre-treat the newly covered chair seats with some Scotchgard Fabric Upholserty Protectant that I purchased some time ago from the local hardware store for about $8. I use this on my dining room chairs and thought it would work perfectly on this desk chair.

Once the chair seat was dry, I screwed it back onto the chair base. There were only 5 screws and they were mostly towards the center of the chair, so I added some hot glue around the edges to make sure it was 100% secure.

And here is the transformation! I decided to put the desk in my daughter’s bedroom afterall, and I have to say... it goes perfectly with her room!

Final costs: $9 for the chair, $3 for the fabric, $4.50 for the Zinsser primer, $3.50 for the Rustoleum semi gloss white spray paint. $20 total! Not to shabby for something totally unique.

Revamped Desk for Kids Play Room

My daughter is a budding artist so I really thought she’d love a space to create and color of her own. While I was at Goodwill a couple of weeks ago, I found a great desk for $30 that was in pretty good shape. When I called my hubby to see if he could pick it up, he mentioned that his mother had an old desk in the basement from when he was a kiddo that we could have... for free!



I nervously passed on the desk from Goodwill to see if I could turn my mother-in-law’s trash into treasure. Luckily, when I saw the desk in the back of her basement covered in toys and books, it was worth the wait! While it had some scratches and dents, overall it was a steal.

So here’s the before... and after! Here’s how I completed the transformation:



The first thing I did after getting the old desk home was give it a complete cleaning. The bottom was covered in cobwebs and the drawers were a little dirty. I washed everything with some light soap and water. Then I sanded the entire desk down.

The top had a large ball of puddy stuck to the top which I had to use the power sander to fix. For the drawers and crevices, I just used some light grade sandpaper. Once I was finished giving the desk a light sanding, I wiped down the table again to make sure it was clear of any leftover dust and grime.



To prime the table, I used Zinsser cover stain with the brown label. I used a roller to cover the large areas of the desk, a brush to get into the crevices and the spray paint version to cover the drawers with a smooth finish. I decided to prime the desk with two coats since I knew it would get a lot of wear and tear, sanding the desk lightly between each coat.



Once it was fully cured, I sanded the desk down once more and wiped off all debris. Now, this desk is going in a play room for now, but eventually I hope on having this playroom turn into a nursery and move this desk into my daughter’s bedroom. So, in order to do this, I had to make sure the color scheme would fit in both rooms.

For the actual top coat, I decided to use Rustoleum white semi gloss spray paint on the base of the desk. For the drawers, I used an offsetting color of spray paint, Sweet Cream by Krylon. I wanted the drawers to pop a little bit off the rest of the desk, and I thought the Sweet Cream color would go perfectly with my daughter’s bedroom set once it’s moved.

To finish the project off, I coated the desk in Minwax polyurethane spray paint in semi gloss. This will really protect my paint job and give it some durability.



Total cost of this project: $23 for the can of Zinsser cover stain paint (with plenty of leftover for future projects!), $7 for two cans of Rustoleum white spray paint, $7 for Minwax polyurethane and $12 for rollers and paint trays. The rest of the supplies I already had in my paint closet, mostly just drop clothes and sandpaper. So, the total was $49 (yeah, remember I got the desk for free!). LOVE IT.

For the desk accessories, I found the pencil holder and organizer from WalMart for $10. I wrapped a green and brown striped ribbon around the pencil holder to bring out the colors of the room. I filled the accessories with my daughter’s favorite art supplies.



I will probably line the drawers in the future with some cool scrapbook paper and of course I need a chair, but until then it’s perfect!