Vintage Oval-Back Chair: From Beige to BAM!

This vintage accent chair was a carved dream – but the upholstery was a nightmare.

Old, stained, and dirty, the beige fabric was ready for the trash. The wood itself was dirty and worn in places. But the potential in this chair was limitless. And there was no way I was going to let all that lovely carving end up in a dumpster.

Step 1: Cleaning and Disassembling

Before I could tackle bringing back the beauty in this chair, I had to give myself a blank canvas. The chair must have been in storage for a while because it was incredibly dusty and dirty. I removed the nasty old fabric and scrubbed down the frame. As you can see from the left half of the pic, the carving captured a lot of dirt. So I had to get into all those crevices with a tiny wet paintbrush (see right side).

Step 2: The Finish

Once I had clean wood, it was time to freshen up the frame. The chair was in remarkably good condition given its neglect. I only needed a few dabs of Minwax® “Espresso” stain here and there to repair chips or dings. What the chair really needed was polishing. Enter one of my favorite new products: furniture salve.

I’ll be discussing furniture salve more in an upcoming post, but the short story is that it moisturizes wood to give it back its original warmth. It also does a great job of hiding small nicks and scratches. Here is the frame after its treatment with WiseOwl® Furniture Salve. It’s positively glowing!

Step 3: The Seat

Finally, a chance to introduce some color to this marvel! The springs and seat were in excellent condition, so I simply needed to add fresh batting and fabric. I decided to go BOLD with this project and went with a rich purple velvet from Spoonflower® that would compliment the floral fabric I’d selected for the oval seat back. (Another great reason to be excited — I got to dust off my Surebonder® pneumatic staple gun again!)

Step 4: The Oval Back

Here’s where the eye-catching fabric was going. I found an amazing watercolor floral velvet on Spoonflower® (spoonflower.com) I was itching to use. With these type of chairs, it’s important to test out your fabric on the back to find the best placement of the print. Even turning a fabric 90 degrees can change the look altogether. So I tried different parts of the print at various angles until I found a placement that emphasized the orchid and matched the seat best. For added eye candy, I used a pink Spoonflower® velvet on the reverse and more of the print on the arm cushions.

Step 5: The Trim

Trim serves two purposes on chairs such as these. First, it disguises the staples that hold the fabric in place. Second, it adds visual interest and dimension to the design. To tie the seat and back together, I made custom double-welt trim from the purple velvet fabric. But, to add some zing, I made double-welt trim from the print to accent the pale pink back of the chair.