apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Lewis, under the name of Gadora Wilder, runs a blog where she finds old furniture pieces and transforms them into fabulous works of art. When she found this old chair, she knew she had the perfect specimen to try out the idea of weaving a necktie seat. Lewis first sanded and refinished the chair, choosing to paint it a taupe color with light turquoise accents. Because this chair wasn't found with a seat, Lewis next cut out a cardboard template and created a seat out of wood (you can skip this step if your chair has a removable seat you can recover).

Lewis then stretched cotton fabric over the wood seat, secured it with a staple gun and stuffed it with filler. Collecting old ties from garage sales and thrift stores, she first experimented with the pattern until she found one she liked best. She then carefully weaved the ties using safety pins to hold the corners together. Next, she hand stitched the ties, placing a decorative "x" stitch in the corner to give the appearance of an old patchwork quilt. Lastly, she secured the now woven ties to the seat with more staples, trimmed the extra material, and placed the seat in the chair!

For a more thorough explanation of how Lewis created this great revamped necktie chair including more information on how she made the finish, visit her post "No Easy Chair." What do you think about the look of a chair seat made out of old ties? Would you try this sort of project on an old chair you have? Let us know what you think!

(Images: Taken by Stephanie Lewis)