Do up Old Dining Chairs?
Most old dining chairs can be done up at home, and the work divides neatly into three stages: tightening the frame, refinishing or painting the timber, and recovering the seat. A structurally sound chair can be transformed over a weekend with wood glue, sandpaper, paint and half a metre of upholstery fabric. This guide starts with how to judge whether a chair is worth saving, including what the underside of the seat tells you about how it was built, then walks through regluing loose joints properly rather than patching them, preparing timber for paint or oil, and recovering a drop in seat pad neatly. It also looks at how to make a mismatched set read as deliberate, and how to recognise the point at which a chair needs so much work that replacing it becomes the more sensible decision....
