Weekend Project: Refinish a Chair

About nine months ago (?) I bought this chair at one of those little antique shops where everything is piled on top of each other and you have to practically bring mountain climbing equipment with you into the store to make your way through:

Luckily, this chair was just to the left of the store's door when I walked in.  I had been keeping my eyes peeled for some time for a chair I could use in the craft room, at my sewing desk.  It was only $10.  Score!

A little back story: The desk has been in my family for more than 35 years.  It's a little plywood desk, and by the time we moved into our house, it was in desperate need of some love.  The desk has a lot of sentimental value for me, I took it with me when I moved out of the parent's house nearly thirteen years ago and I couldn't imagine ever giving it up.

I decided to give it a whole new life.  I followed this tutorial on Young House Love, and a week later my desk went from this:

To this:

As on YHL, I lightly sanded the desk, applied primer, then put on several light coats of white (I used semi-gloss by Behr) paint until I was satisfied with the color, and then I applied a light coat of Poly.  I removed the hardware (prior to painting the desk, of course) and spray-painted it with Rust-Oleum oil-rubbed bronze.  It's a whole new desk.  And it needed a new chair.

I followed the same steps with the chair: sand, prime, paint, paint, paint, poly.  Meanwhile, I removed the seat and prepared to reupholster it.  This was the fun part.

This was the seat before:

Eeeew.  I removed the fabric, and lo and behold, there was a whole other layer of upholstery underneath!  And it was gorgeous!

Although I loved the texture and aesthetic of this fabric, it wasn't what I had in mind for the chair.  I decided not to remove it, because it's a good fabric and why not?  I wonder how old this chair is, because there was a THIRD layer of upholstery underneath:

It was like a form of leather.  So perhaps this will be the chair's fourth transformation?

I wanted to give the seat a little extra cushion, so I bought some cheap polyester quilt batting from Jo-Ann Fabrics (it was 50% off so I paid $5!), and put two layers of it between the seat and the new fabric.

I used left over upholstery fabric from a previous project, and then went to work with a staple gun.

I secured the finished seat on the newly-refinished chair with new screws, and voila:

Now I have a bright, cheerful, cushy new chair for my sewing desk.  With the exception of the quilt batting, I used all materials I already had on hand, so this project only cost me $15.  Can I get a high five?!