The Designing Doc: DIY: Refinished Card Table and Chairs

When my father cleaned out his parents' garage a few months ago he brought home a card table and matching chairs. It wasn't the most attractive set but it was free and had some potential.

The chair had a bar along the back of the seat that I removed and the seat slid right out. Getting the bar back on proved to be harder though because I had to bend the metal back into place.

Laminated fabric and oilcloth are good to consider for this project if you think that your table will be used often or there is risk of things being spilled, etc. During previous visits to Hobby Lobby I had seen this laminated cotton and knew that when I got around to doing this project this would be the print I would use. I love all things French and knew that this was not a super trendy print that I would get sick of quickly - I like to make/recreate things in such a way that I would keep them around for a while. This often means putting in some extra elbow grease (sanding, painting, etc.) but I think that it is well worth it in the long run. Do it right the first time and you won't have to redo it - right?

Anyways... my table was 35x35 and the chair seats were 13x13 so I got almost a yard and a half. It was on sale (orig. 17.99/yd) so I got it for about $12.

Between coats of spray paint, I started cutting out the fabric. I allowed room to wrap the edges so the table fabric was cut to 37x37. For the chairs, I took the old cushions and traced them with about 3/4"-1" of extra room around the edges.

I painted the undersides of the table and chair seats because they were just plain plywood before and not too attractive. Because the pieces all fold up, I wanted to make sure that the pieces still looked nice when folded. There were some bolts attaching the table top to the table base/legs so after I detached the pieces I painted the bolts white to match the underside.

I cut down batting (weight: J10 - I wanted to have some cush) to fit the seats. I didn't worry too much about making them fit perfectly to the edges because the edges were covered by the metal part of the seat. Using fabric sheers makes cutting batting much easier than regular household scissors. I used a heavy duty spray mount to adhere the batting to the wood so that it wouldn't slide around at all.

I used this Arrow stapler to staple the fabric around the wood, making sure to pull it taught as I worked.

I followed the same process for covering the table but I used a thinner batting. I just wanted something to go between the fabric and the wood because the fabric wasn't super thick and also something to soften the edges of the table. Here is the table batting:

I picked up this spray paint in Ballet Slipper at Hobby Lobby for 5.99/can. I ended up needing 4 cans to get full coverage because the original color of the chairs/table was so dark.