how to recover an ice cream parlor chair seat

By now y'all have figured out that the Fluffy Flowers household is animal friendly. Yep, dinner time can be quite the raucous adventure with several four legged creatures running around!

To try to keep the carnage at bay each critter has his or her own feeding station.

This happens to be Mr. Slashables's assigned area. Those of y'all with both dogs and cats in your homes know why its essential that kitty food be up on a table. Goodness knows how much weight Mr. Lucky Cowdog would gain if that tasty bowl of kibble was within his reach!

Anyway, to make Mr. Slashables's dinning accommodations more comfortable I've placed a chair conveniently located for him to haul his bulk up to his feeding station.

The problem is that the chair seat is looking a little worse for wear. He agrees with me that its high time we go on and recover the thing. We're gonna do this the lazy way y'all. Nothin' too fancy for us. Ready? Here we go!

You will need:

• pliers
• tacks
• butter knife (not your best one)
• small hammer
• pretty, thrifted napkin to match your decor

I hauled this project outside so I could avoid too many animal assistants. But since this was for Slash's area I let him participate. Uh, ok, actually, he insisted on supervising! You'll be seeing him a little later.

First thing you've gotta do is turn this joker upside down and unscrew the nuts.

One big tip here: You DON'T have to unscrew them all. I just undid half of them and the seat slid right out.

Ok, now that the seat is out its time to remove the old cover. I put this cover on years and years ago when I first got this ice cream parlor chair. I'm pretty sure I acquired this adorable little chair while dumpster diving when I was in college.

You see, back then I was pretty poor and the rich students would move out at the end of each semester and leave behind hordes of still extremely useful stuff. My friends and I would pile into a car, pass around a thermos of hot chocolate and make the tour of student apartment trash cans. Often the good stuff was sitting in massive piles outside the cans. Once I found a very fashionable shirt with a dollar still in the pocket. Another time one of my friends found a box full of china. It was incredible the amount of stuff that was destined for the landfill. I'm so glad I did my duty by rescuing and recycling.

Ok, anyway, sorry, I got off track. I pried the tacks I'd used before off with a butter knife. Works like a charm.

I left the original cover intact because we're doing this the lazy way. Anyhow, spread your thrifted napkin on the ground with the wrong side facing up. Lay the seat down on top of it as close to the middle as you can get.

Now its time to break out the hammer. Tack on four corners first. Think north, south, east and west here. Then fold up the loose fabric in between and tack those too. You can use some duct tape too to hold down any especially poofy sections. No need to concern yourself with prettiness. I promise you no one will flip this chair over to see what it looks like underneath.

Once you've got all the fabric tacked down flip it over and check out your handy work. Yippee! Better than I expected.

Ok, now comes the crummy part. You've gotta put the chair back together again. Make sure the loose legs are turned the right way before you screw the big bolts back on. Oh, and just so you know, some of the screws might be longer than others. Thats because the longer ones hold on both the seat back and the legs. Best to notice this before you unscrew and then rescrew. Um, I speak from experience here.

Oh, we interrupt this tutorial for a brief Slashables supervisory photo shoot. I hope that yawn wasn't boredom with this project. Anyway we're getting mighty close to the end!

I'm not quite sure what he thinks of this redo yet.

Seems like he's still mulling it over...

Or maybe he's got an itch to scratch...

Or perhaps he's distracted by something. Anyway...

Ta da! Here it is, finally finished!

Looking mighty good too! We'll have to see what the lord and master thinks.

Uh, Slash? Slashables! Where are you Slash?! Hum, he's no where to be found. Probably outside supervising the bugs.

Well, that's ok. I like it. And after all, he's a boy so he'll probably be happy however it turned out!

Comments

[Luthi]

Hello!
I love cats!!! I love you'r cat.
Very sweet.
Sorry, my english is very bad... I'm brazilian.
Kiss.

[Bejeweled]

OK... I'm smiling! That was a super cute post :) Tutorial and kitty fest in one post - can't beat that :)

[Thimbleanna]

Very nice Felicia! I love the new print and it suits Slashables new dining accomodations just perfectly!

[Susan]

Lucky Mr. Slashables! My dogs would get his food off that table though, and they'd do it without using the lovely chair. ;-)

[Laume]

It looks lovely with it's new seat finery. And I know the cat/dog food issues well. We do keep our cat food on the floor but we try to keep the dogs out of it. I have one cat that is so large round that every time someone sees her, whether it's for the first time or the fortieth time, they can't help but blurt out "That is the FATTEST cat I have EVER SEEN!!!" We don't know why she's so fat. But there it is. If we put the cat food up on anything she was required to jump to to get to it, she'd starve. Or, hmmm, lose some way. Now why didn't I think of that before!

[Laume]

Of course that should have been "lose some weight", not "lose some way". Duh me.

[Kim]

I love crafts that involve butter knives! Sign me up.

[Brigitta]

lucky cat!!! I'm pretty sure he'll love it just as much as I do!! I do hope that one day at least one of my kitties is as adorable and cuddly as yours (I think the half siamese will never ever gain any weight though)

[Laura]

What talented staff ol' Slashables has!

[lisa brawner]

nice tut!! the chair came out great. Kitty did his job well !!! I saw your blog in an etsy thread this morning and wanted to drop by and said "morning " :P

[Karyn]

Wow, what a difference from before and after...I'm sure Slashable loves it!

[Alisha]

I love ice cream parlor chairs. I used to have a pair, but when I tried to take one chair apart to repair the seat I never could get it back together! I could have used this tutorial back then!

[Jennifer Rose]

very helpful :D love the seat and your table cloth

[Sarah]

I love your recover job...cool fabric. Your post was totally nostalgic for me because I used to have an icecream parlor chair for a chair at my "makeup table" when I was a teen...and it was leftover from the icecream shop my grandparents owned when I was younger. (Now THAT was cool!!)

[Edie]

Cute chair! And I love that Slash's dining area includes a lovely woodland and water "view"! My cats eat on top of the deep freezer in the corner of the dining room or else my glutton chihuahua would inhale their food!

[Tif]

aaah! so cute! you picked a great fabric for that chair!!

[Chara Michele]

I love this post :) Did Slashables like his new chair? Around here any craft project is viewed by my 2 kitties as being theirs :)

[Jennifer]

What a good tutorial, and you know I love a Slashables picture show.

[rose]

Well done!
::applause::
Bravo!!

[Christina Silverio]

Awesome tutorial! Still grinning from ear to ear! I think I found a new favorite blog. :)
All the best!
Christina
HoydenDesigns.etsy.com

[ctmott]

Great pictures and great job on the chair..You really explained how to cover the chair very well..Good blog. Of course the cat stole the show..

[sadira]

I think I wanted to comment on this but couldn't get my computer to cooperate...or rather, the internet the computer is a Mac...it's just dreamy! Anyway...I have the round tablecloth that matches your napkin! HA!!! It's one of my favorites...although, it's thrifted as well, and I did not get the napkins, but I'm happy to see they're being put to good use!!

[corry]

Great post Felicia! I love your before and after job....lovely fabric too!

[zakka life]

your chair looks lovely, great tutorial

[Kylie]

Oh wow just Love the new look of the chair!

[Sherri]

I really enjoyed looking at your blog...great tutorial...love the emotionals...and Georgia is gorgeous! You have so many beautiful photographs as well!

[Sandy]

You were totally right about the Sex and the City guess over on my site! And, I love the chair redo. Very cute!

[pam]

Very lovely! I see that Slashables was busy supervising. ;)

[Alison Whittington]

Love it!

[Kelly H]

what a great project. I love that chair.

[Miss Snips]

it is many and old chair like that I have recovered the same way, even with one or more cats looking on... One old chair needs to be done yearly as fossie cat sleeps on it and only on it, so it gets very hairy -- thanks too, for dropping by my blog...

[katie]

i love the pictures of the kitty with the chair! so cute.

[cecilia]

Haha! Love that cat! Ad the chair looks great after your makeover!

[Cate Holst]

Great new look for the chair. I love the names of your cats too

[Tricia]

Love your chair seat tutorial with Mr. S's careful supervision! That was so educational and fun too! You have such a great sense of amusement with your projects!! I love that Mr. S only eats on the table!!!
I'm imspired now to do my diningroom chairs, which I've been thinking of doing for the past oh, 2 years!!!!

[DIY Guy]

Great work on the chair, it looks much better with the red cushin. You might want to add a thin flathead screwdriver to your toolbox and leave the butter knives for the bread! ;)

You being the great do-it-yourselfer that you are, might want to check out this $300 home depot give away. It's at http://www.bizzibid.com and is pretty easy to enter.