Inspiration: Cheap Chair Rehab The New York Times 6.5.08

How far can you stretch $40 and a do-it-yourself attitude? The New York Times shadowed experienced prop stylist and set designer Michele Spadaro as she rehabilitated an inexpensive, thrift store chair into a one-of-a-kind stylish piece of furniture with the help of some spray paint and an old sweater...

For Spadaro's resources and tips, see the complete feature from The New York Times: Shopping With Michele Spadaro.

Images: Andrea Mohin for The New York Times

Comments (8)

Uncomfortable-looking chair Ugly sweater = No thanks

I like the DIY spirit, but that chair would be better suited as a prop in one of Spadaro's sets than as a functional home piece - a sweater would make terrible upholstery material as it would stretch and pill over time.

Comfortable or not, I think the creativity behind the chair is brilliant! Nice job!

This should not have cost forty dollars. I'm pretty sure that very chair is on my neighbors driveway, awaiting trash pick up.

i enthusiastically second elizabethy's post. AT's financial sensibilities often leave me wondering what people consider expensive...

boomer: i agree with your comment, it just makes me a little flabbergasted how chair cost $40 secondhand as it seems of crappy/meant-to-be-used-for-a-year poor quality. i think the main advantage of what this post is advocating is that you can buy QUALITY used furniture cheaply and make it look fabulous with a little ingenuity. i've redone chairs in a manner not unlike this post, but not only were they more cheaply done, i'd like to think the "bones" of the chair were better/more substantial...a dark, scarred chair with a canned back and elegant legs and a little bit of embroidered upholstery fabric cost me a little over $20. this little chair looks like it'd buckle under a 120 lb woman (and should cost about $20 at target).

boomer...i hope you survived the appliance epoxy spray paint! i have a out-of-control spray painting habit (nothing enters my house without being radically altered/painted), but i only just recently used that appliance epoxy spray paint and that stuff is vile! nosehairs i didn't realize i had ended up laquered in a thick layer of white epoxy! i had no idea that stuff was so different that regular old spray paint. i'd love to see the result of your elbow grease.