I have two of these accent chairs, which were a bargain Homegoods purchase from back in 2011-ish during the first year we lived in this house. At the time the coastal theme was all the rage, and we had just moved back to Charleston after two years of being landlocked in Colorado, so this Florida girl, turned Charleston transplant, was ready to fully embrace the trend. These fun little patterned chairs fit the bill and budget at the time, but when we bought new furniture two years ago (or has it been three already?), they were banished to the garage, where they’ve sat waiting to be tagged in again to serve their purpose.
I had thought about properly reupholstering them, but I still haven’t quite recovered from reupholstering two sofas and a big old matching chair back when I was in college…..and that was almost 20 years ago. Then I thought about painting the fabric, but I recently painted that large accent chair, and for some reason, painting this style chair felt a bit uninspiring.
Recently I began updating our master bedroom….finally. And in the midst of overwhelming paint fumes, my brain suddenly recovered a memory of a shaggy fur chair I had seen online at some point. It was at that moment I knew what needed to be done. I was going to drag my tired old accent chairs out from under the pile of junk that’s formed around them, and give them new life, with the help of some cheap faux fur rugs.
Here are the materials I needed to achieve my final product:
- 120 grit and 220 grit sandpaper (had on hand)
- Power Sander (had on hand)
- Staple Gun (had on hand, but here’s a newer version of mine for $20)
- Three 3’x5′ Faux Fur Rugs ($37.00 each)
- 1/2 inch Staples ($3.00)
- Old Bargain Accent Chairs (Paid around $150 for each 10 years ago)
This project is definitely something that can be done in an afternoon. I didn’t initially purchase enough faux fur, so I did each chair on different days, but neither took me more than a few hours from start to finish. It obviously would have been far more efficient to be able to do both at the same time, but it’s pretty much my standard M.O. to not buy enough materials from the get go.¯\_(ツ)_/¯
THE PROCESS
I started by sanding the dark finish off the legs with 120 grit sandpaper. Thankfully it came off surprisingly easily.
Once I got a raw wood finish, I quickly ran over the whole thing with 220 grit sandpaper to get a nice smooth finish.
I obviously wasn’t quite sure how the legs would look until after I got all he finish off, so I assumed I’d probably stain them, but when they sanded down so nicely, I actually fell in love with how they looked with a raw finish. So much so, I didn’t even apply polyurethane.
So all that was left to do was measure out and cut the pieces of faux fur, and then staple them to the chair. Too easy!
Before I got to stapling, I ripped off the bottom cover to expose the underside of the chair to give me a better surface to staple the faux fur to. I could have used the same piece of fabric and reattached it at the end, but I happened to have a giant roll of flower bed liner collecting dust in the garage, which is made with a very similar material and it worked well as a fresh replacement. If I hadn’t had bed liner, I would have reattached the original cover.
Here are some pics of the process. I hate this saying, but there’s more than one way to skin a cat, and that goes for stapling faux fur to an old chair too. I just kind of figured it out how to apply the the faux fur as I went, and it happened to work out well. The great thing about faux fur is it conceals the staples and folds, so you really can’t mess it up:)
I’m so tickled with the final result! Gracie’s still deciding though;) I’ve linked other shag fur accent chairs down below, and you can see the huge price tags. Though some of them are real fur, so I’m definitely not encouraging anyone to purchase them! Just sharing to compare their aesthetics and the staggering difference in cost.
These stylish updated chairs now live in our master bedroom. I still have a little ways to go before that room is finished, but these chairs are a great addition, and this little upcycle was done on a shoestring budget:)
Sooo…..what do you all think??
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