A few weeks ago, when I revealed our low-budget, high-impact kitchen makeover, I shared that the vintage faux bamboo chairs I found for the kitchen ended up having a major flaw…
While the double-sided caning was in perfect condition, the frames were structurally sound, and even the fabric was in great shape, I neglected to actually SIT in the chairs when I met the Craigslist seller at his storage unit. You guys, I was so excited I blithely handed over my money and completely broke the Craigslist 101 rule of always actually trying out the furniture.
I got them home, arranged them around the kitchen table, and was talking Bryan’s ear off about what a find they were, how thrilled I was, how perfect they were for the space. And then he sat down with his bowl of cereal and loudly exclaimed, “I’m falling through the chair!”
I sat down myself.
It was true.
While the foam cushions still appeared plump and supportive, any support beneath had apparently given up the ghost long ago.
Now, here’s where I tell you, truthfully and honestly: I have a history of talking myself into buying “project pieces” and then letting said “project pieces” languish in the garage for years because I’m too busy/unmotivated/intimidated to actually tackle them.
I know this about myself. And Bryan knows this.
So over the years, he’s instituted and enforced a very strict “No project pieces” rule… because he loves me and wants to save me from myself. If I don’t have a definite plan or know exactly what I’m going to do to fix up, refurbish, and actually use something – it doesn’t come into our home.
But these project pieces were already in our home. Sitting around our kitchen table. Roped off with imaginary yellow “Caution” tape, sure, but possession is 9/10ths of winning the argument, right?
I spent the next several weeks combing Craigslist for alternative chairs that wouldn’t need to be stripped down to their bare bones and rebuilt using skills I may or may not possess. (With these chairs, I wouldn’t know what was required until after I gutted them and potentially rendered them un-re-sellable.) No suitably perfect replacements presented themselves, and I got closer and closer to wrapping up the kitchen.
Finally, I stumbled across the most perfect upholstery fabric in the universe one evening and just knew it was meant for my kitchen chairs. Faux bamboo kitchen chairs, with double-sided caning on the backs.
“I’m keeping those chairs! And I’m going to figure out how to fix them!”
*Today’s post may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase through an affiliate link, I may receive a small commission. You can read my full disclosure here. I hope you all know by now that I do only share things I really truly love!
You Will Need:
- Upholstery staple remover tool – absolutely essential and a complete life-saver! I purchased one with a wooden handle, but I would recommend a different handle to help prevent blisters.
- Needle nose pliers
- 5 mm underlayment or 1/4″ plywood – I purchased a 2’x4′ “Project Panel” at my local hardware store, which was enough to fix the seats of my four chairs.
- Wood glue
- Replacement fabric – check out this guide to help you figure out how much yardage to purchase
- Upholstery staples + stapler – I have an electric staple gun, but I find it doesn’t do as a good of a job as my little, manual stapler. For upholstery, I use light duty 5/16″ staples. Occasionally, I need to follow up with a hammer to make sure they go in all the way. A pneumatic stapler is the gold standard for upholstery, but I just haven’t pulled the trigger (hehe) on this purchase yet, since it requires an air compressor as well.
Step 1: The Night of 1,000 Staples
It was time to actually assess the situation. No turning back.
I unscrewed the chair seats from the chairs and began removing staples with this miraculous little tool.
Most of the time, it popped the staples up enough to use a pair of needle nose pliers to fully remove them.
Once I had the black fabric dust cover removed, I could clearly see the saggy-bottomed culprit:
The wooden seat frame was hollow in the middle, with a piece of rubbery mesh that I suppose at one time had been elastic enough to provide support, but which was now stretched out and disintegrating.
I’ll tell you a secret: normally, when I re-cover dining chairs, I just stretch the new fabric over the old fabric (as long as the old fabric is in decent shape) and staple it on.
But in order to actually fix the problem with these chairs, I needed to completely strip the chair seat down to the wooden frame.
Between the dust cover, the piped trim, the upholstery fabric, a layer of batting, and the disgustingly crumbling rubber mesh, I spent a little over an hour on each chair seat, pulling out five separate layers of hundreds of staples to free the wooden seat frame.
Tip: If you’re extra careful with your staple removal, you’ll be able to reuse pieces like the dust cover and even piping, and you can use the old fabric as a template for cutting new fabric.
Step 2: Plug The Hole
I grabbed my plywood and cut it down slightly larger on all sides than the hole in the wooden seat frame. I used a hand saw because that’s all I have, but it got the job done.
I squeezed a zigzag of wood glue all around the edges and glued the plywood to the TOP side of the wooden seat frame. Then, I stacked paint cans and bricks (really, any heavy objects will do) on top to hold the plywood onto the frame while it dried overnight.
Step 3: Reassembly
The next day, I repeated the steps of the previous day in reverse.
Start with the foam and batting, upside down:
Add the wooden seat frame, and staple the batting to the frame:
Next, use the old upholstery fabric as a template for cutting the new fabric:
Lay face down on the ground, then wrap the edges around the upside-down seat cushion and staple at the top, bottom, left and right sides to hold:
Then, work your way out from those staples towards the four corners, pulling the fabric taut as you go.
This is how I like to fold my corners:
Next, trim any excess fabric away from your line of staples:
And finally, I stapled the dust cover back on. It gives it a nice professional finish, don’t you think?
All that was left was to reattach the seats to the chairs and give them a test-sit…
Voila!
No sag! No imminent threat of falling through!
And I absolutely adore the vintage Oriental rug-look tapestry fabric! It’s luxuriously heavy weight and the colors are perfection!
Can you believe I was almost ready to just give up on these chairs? This project definitely taught me a lesson in not being so easily intimidated!
Pin it for future reference!
yay–I’m glad you were so brave and pushed on through to find a solution! And I love your chairs! I’ve realized cane chairs can’t live in our house with our not always careful kids and naughty kitties, so I’m just going to admire yours from afar.
Thanks Gretchen! I do wonder how long these will survive… But hey, if something happens, maybe I can take my new-found boldness and explore the world of re-caning!
thank you for the post. i have an antique rosewood table with 10 chairs. all are sagging. so now thanks to you i know i can fix them and enjoy the table for many more years !
I love the fabric you chose. I’m glad you were able to fix the chairs. They’re so pretty.
Thanks Emy! I’m obsessed with this fabric too!
So glad you were able to salvage those!
Me too!!! They are just perfect with the new seats and fabric!
Thank you!! I’ve been wanting to redo ours and just realized our chairs don’t have the wood seat just like yours. No wonder I sink so far down. I’m going to bookmark this for when I have time to fix them.
Love the Chairs and the fabric. Well worth your efforts and hard work. Glad you were persistent. Nothing better than recycling, repurposing & upcycling.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for posting this!! I’ve been embarrassed for years about our otherwise beautiful dining room chairs that sag like crazy, making us all uncomfortable when we host the occasional dinner party. I thought all we needed was new foam inserts, but then I turned one of the chairs over and saw exactly the same issue you faced. Your instructions and pictures are amazing, and I can’t wait to use them to fix my own chairs!!!
I’m SO glad to hear that this post was helpful to you, Erika! I thought it would be so much more difficult than it actually was to fix the problem – so glad it was actually pretty simple!
Yay!! I am so happy that I found your post. I just bought dining chairs on Craigslist and was so excited about the deal that I didn’t sit on them either!! I knew I wanted to recover….the first seat I took off was super saggy. I looked under the black dust fabric and there was no support. I couldn’t believe that anyone would make chairs this way. I searched online all day and finally found this tutorial. I am so happy I wasn’t the only one..ha ha?
I recently purchased a dining set with 8 chairs that have this exact fabric underneath for Support I ha e searched all over to replace it with like fabric with no luck. Seems the closest thing to it is a 2” webbing which would take forever and cost a fortune. Think I may have to follow your instructions to fix mine as well. Just curious what type of cushion did you use to replace the old ones? Synthetic or foam and what thickness for look and comfort? Thank you for your post and any answers would be helpful!
Hi Diana! I was actually able to reuse the existing foam after I added the plywood seat support. If your foam isn’t in great shape, I know many fabric/craft stores sell sheets of thick upholstery foam. That was going to be my Plan B if I pulled off the upholstery and discovered that the foam wasn’t in good enough shape to reuse 🙂
I laughed so hard, my stomach hurts! This post is just like me with Craigslist. I find great deals all the time – most of them are really terrific. But the chair I found at a bargain sink in the middle, so I’m going to be brave and take one apart to see what happens. Thanks for your post. As for the instructions, I didn’t understand why the plywood needs to be bigger than the frame, but it probably will make sense when I am at that step. Besides, it will probably be easier than trying to make a piece of plywood that fits perfectly inside of the frame. Oh well. Thanks for the site, and for the laughs. Mary
Yep, you got it! It’s easier to just cut the piece a little bit bigger than the middle hole and lay it on top than try to fit it perfectly! 🙂
So glad you enjoyed the post!
Really appreciated this and your honest confession “I have a history of talking myself into buying “project pieces” and then letting said “project pieces” languish in the garage for years because I’m too busy/unmotivated/intimidated to actually tackle them.” Anyways great job with this write-up and the chairs!!!
I bought a wonderfully long table for my growing family, and have this EXACT same dilemma with the six chairs that came with it! Four of the chairs are fine, but apparently there are two that were used more. I thought I was falling all the way through!
Thank you for sharing what you learned. I am going to start on the chairs today.
I just made a similar purchase of dining chairs half because I really liked the dark wood and half because I love the fabric on the seat and chair back. Even though I did sit in each one of them, it wasn’t until a week later that something was obviously wrong. I never actually looked underneath the chairs! I too was excited with my find that I overlooked a huge issue. The seller had recovered the chairs herself, which was fine, but also repaired each seat with weaved elastic bands that were coming loose as soon as we started using on them!
I an having the same problem with our very expensive chairs that we use daily. My other complaint is that the frame that they attach the cushion and upholstery to is the CHEAPEST plywood in existence!!! Why do these companies use this JUNK on an otherwise beautiful hardwood chair?! I tried attaching metal strap to the frame of the chair and putting wood underneath which worked for a few months, but the metal strap stretched and eventually broke. I was hoping to avoid a full rebuild but it looks like that’s the only way to do it right. Thanks for the post!