So a while back I picked up a pair of mid-century modern chairs. I'm not too sure about how old these are, but I think they are made out of Teak since they are relatively heavy.
They were pretty well worn. With tired looking brown vinyl. But they are very comfortable to sit in. They put you in good posture.
The wood frame had seen better days. Some parts were sticky, some parts the finished wore off, and some joints were loose.
But overall, they were a pretty good set to start out with. I only paid $21 dollars for the pair.
I started by disassembling the chair. I removed the bottom seat cushion which were held on by screws. Then I disassembled the frame by hitting it apart with a rubber mallet. Like this one here -> http://amzn.to/2mYLUT4
The frame came apart fairly easy.
You can see some of that built up nastiness in the chairs.
With is all taken apart I sanded the frame down with 100, 200, and finally 400 grit sand paper. It was all I had left in my supplies.
More of the crap on the chair.
After sanding the frame I went to cover the back rest portion of the chairs. I already had some spare fabric from other projects. I removed the old vinyl cover and rough cut to shape a piece of new fabric. Then I glued the fabric to the old vinyl and reinstalled it onto the back rest.
After I recovered the back rest, I stained the frame using Minwax Penetrating Stain ( http://amzn.to/2nuKKLw ). Again I had some stain left over from other projects. And I glued and clamped all the joints together.
Not bad so far, at least I think so.
After the stain is dry I applied 1 coat of paste wax. I used SC Johnson Paste wax, luckily I had a tin in the garage.
For the back of the backrest I couldn't reuse the nail head trim from the original chairs, so I had to purchase some. Since I'm constantly flipping stuff I like to have enough for more than 1 project so I went with Decotacks® Upholstery Nails/tacks 100 Pcs Antique Brass ( http://amzn.to/2mYJWlI )
For the cushion, I cut the cover off first. The I removed a portion of the center of the old padding, which had basically disintegrated into foam powder.
I placed new foam in the cutout, glued it in, and glued the batting on top of the foam.
Then I stapled the old cover back on first. Afterwards I stapled one side of my new fabric to the seat. Then I glued the new fabric on top of the old vinyl. Next I stapled the new fabric onto the seat. I chose to keep the old vinyl cover underneath because it made keeping the original shape of the seat padding easier as opposed to just using the new fabric on top of the foam.
And here is the finished product.
I think it turned out pretty good.
The wife loves them, kind of wants to keep them for a little bit.
You can kind of see the shape of the new padding there. It would have been more visible if I didn't use the old vinyl cover. But once the padding is broken in it won't be that obvious any more.
And for an added extra touch to catch the eye of possible buyers, I recovered the bottom of the seat with a bright teal color.
Yup I only had to shell out $10 for some nail head trim, with extra to spare for any other furniture flips in the future. Now to post it for sale on CL. I shoot for the sky when I initially price my items. Who knows, someone might pay a ridiculous price. So for the first week I tried a stupid crazy asking price of $400 LOL. Of course no one bought it . So lowered it to $300. Got some interest, but nothing serious yet. At that point you should know that you're getting close to a price people are willing to pay. With that I went down to $250 after 2 1/2 weeks. BAM! Somebody bought it for $220!
Came away with a $189 profit. I know $189 might not sound like much, but your return on investment percentage wise is a whopping 609%! And on Wall St. an 8% return on investment would make you a guru, while they say shoot for and be happy with a 5% return. So I'll gladly take my $189 profit and use it to flip more stuff!
