I recently shared this easy repurposed chair back coat rack at Today’s Creative Life! Kim was having some friends share great projects, you really should check them out at her Celebrate Summer series.
Thrift store chair
This lonely chair had been marked at 5.03, but was 50% off when I bought it at Vendors’ Village. What a deal! A chair for only $2.50? I have this thing with chairs, if you’re interested you can listen to my podcast All About Thrift Store and Curb Shopping—where I discuss my top five things to look for when I’m junking.
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Remove the chair back
I began by removing the chair back from the chair seat, which was fairly simple to do by removing some screws.
Cut some of the length off the back of the chair
After the back was removed, I needed to cut the bulk of the legs away from the back. Although I did this on my compound miter saw, but you could easily do it with a hand saw or a jig saw.
I was left with this small section of the chair back. I sanded some of the finish away, and as always, started painting the back of the project first.
Prepare to paint
I mixed up a quick batch of my diy chalky paint primer that I use on 90% of my projects and used my Homeright Finish Max to spray the chair back with my favorite white, Polished Pearl.
This was after the first coat, when I decided to fill in the detailed lines with some spackling.
Add embellishments to the repurposed chair back
I used some of my IOD paper clay molds to add some details to the top and the center of the chair back.
In fact I recently spent about 30 minutes making a bunch of molds using up an entire package of my paper clay so I would have plenty at hand for future projects.
After attaching two of the paper clay appliques with some Gorilla Wood Glue, I used some dark umber wax from Heirloom Traditions Paint to make the details of the appliques show up better
Coat hooks for repurposed chair back coat rack
I didn’t have any hooks from D. Lawless Hardware. So I used store bought hooks that were much higher. It’s definitely time to stock up on some more hooks from my friend Dave!
I had to switch out the screws of the double hooks with shorter ones, because the ones that came with these hooks were too long for the chair back.
Attach d rings for hanging
I used my favorite d rings to enable the coat rack to hang safely on the wall.
A coat rack on the fence? It was the best place for me to “stage” it for a good photograph.
Isn’t it amazing how beautiful it turned out? If you have an old chair and some hooks in your stash, you could make this project in an afternoon.
In case you are wondering what happened to the other half of the chair—I made a wall shelf out of the bottom of the chair and the back legs that I cut off the chair back.
So, with one $2.50 chair, I got two easy projects. Did I mention how much I LOVE chair projects?
What have you made out of a chair lately?
gail
See one of my first, and an all-time favorite chair projects here
Albert
You have started some thing with these chairs
thanks you so much
Albert
Hello Gail
Thank you for so much info. I enjoy looking it all of your projects
Thanks for sharing.
Linda Weber
That was beautiful. Will really look nice with necklaces hanging off of it, if that is what you made it for. Or just what ever you want to hang from it, Love the way you done the bottom of the chair. You had some great idea's when you bought that chair.
gail@myrepurposedlife.com
Thank you Linda! I appreciate your comment.
gail
Sophie
Wow that is really impressive, I thought at first you were remodelling a chair by taking a rack and replacing the back of the chair with that but as I read and went through the right picture sequence I understood your brilliance. This is a really amazing DIY and brings new life.
gail@myrepurposedlife.com
Thank you Sophie for your sweet comment. I love making things out of old chairs because I really never met a chair I didn't love!
I hope you find more projects on My Repurposed Life to inspire you.
gail
girlfromwva
i am looking for a chair to use for a project. i know i will find one soon. LOVE both your projects!
Angie @ ambient wares
I have many a chair and I always just paint and recover, paint and recover 🙂 I love your chair projects and it's high time I do something different!
Derrick Lawless
A link and we didn't even provide the hardware! Thanks so much! I'll look forward to hearing from you soon!