DIY ModPodge Chair Hack in Redbook

Its another Redbook DIY, folks. Its surprisingly easy (although don’t make our mistakes … read on). This one was inspired by the queen of DIY, Jenny Komenda from this post – and by inspired I pretty much mean REALLY INSPIRED, if you know what I mean. Thanks, Jenny (and congrats on your new baby).

Items Needed:

Chair: Any solid piece chair will work, but after doing the DIY on this chair we realized that it would have been much easier to Modpodge the fabric to a chair that didn’t have SO many curves and lips. Maybe something a little simpler or without arms would have been a better choice. Trust me. This chair is adorable but it was way more of a challenge to get rid of the bubbles (and there were some that never went away) because of the curve.

Modpodge: There are all different kinds depending on if you want it to be shiny, satin, flat, or if you are using fabric with the modpodge vs. paper. Get the kind that works best for your specific chair. We used the general purpose Matte finish, which seemed to work well for us.

Foam Paint Brush: foam is always easier than a traditional paint brush for something like this, and buying a cheap one at the store means that you can toss it in the garbage when you finish the project rather than spending the time to clean it.

Fabric: our fabric was sourced from The Fabric Store which is a local fabric store here in LA. But we decided to go with something that didn’t have too big of a pattern and that was also a bit abstract, just in case we made mistakes. Our fabric was also very thin which made it very easy to get it to stick to the chair with the modpodge.

Razor: you will use this to trim away the excess fabric once the chair and fabric have adhered to one another.

Step 1:

Take the legs off of your chair (if possible) and lay the chair upside down. Lay your fabric over the chair to make sure that you will have enough and that it is positioned correctly. Then begin to apply the modpodge to the chair. The more you use the easier it will be to adjust the fabric and get it to stick to the chair. You can’t really use too much with a project like this, but DO make sure that you work in small areas so that your modpodge doesn’t dry before you lay the fabric down on top of it. Once you have painted a small patch of modpodge lay the fabric over on top of it and press it down. Continue doing this until you have adhered the entire piece of fabric to the chair.

Step 2:

This is definitely an optional step but we decided to do it just to prolong the life of the chair. Once the fabric has adhered to the chair, apply an even coat of modpodge to the entire fabric area. It will not appear to go on clear but will dry that way so don’t get worried if it looks like you are ruining your new piece of fabric with modpodge. This last layer will help to seal the fabric to the chair and prevent it from getting dirt, moisture, or anything else on it. It also prevents the fabric from fraying and makes it very easy to clean up when you spill something on it.

Step 3:

Once your chair is all dry, carefully trim away all of the excess fabric around the edges. You can also go over the edges once again with a layer of modpodge if any of the fabric starts to peel up while you are trimming.

Step 4:

Reattach legs, sit on chair and stare at your awesome vintage pencil collection (Vintage, from Nickey Kehoe).

Resources: vintage desk from MidcenturyLA | vintage pencil collection from Nickey Kehoe | knock off Eiffel chairs from random source, but you can buy them here. 

All photos by David Tsay with Styling by Scott horne, art direction by Me.