IKEA Chair Hack With a Little Bit of Paint and Some Fabric

I loved how the chairs added a pop of color to the otherwise neutral palette of the room but over the years, I’ve been gravitating towards a more subdued esthetic and it was time for a change: new paint job and new seat covers!

Step 1: Picking a color

Before starting with this project, I had to pick a color for the chairs. I used this Tunisian tile artwork that’s hanging in my kitchen as inspiration to pick a color and chose to go with the golden yellow accent, but with a sparkle of gold metallic in it.  

Step 2: Remove seats

Before I got to painting, I removed all the seats - they were attached with 4 screws and it was very easy to take them all off.

Step 3: Paint chairs

I started with a golden yellow paint called “Heritage Gold”, I recommend getting paint with primer, especially if you’re trying to cover up a dark color. I ended up having to do several coats. 2 small sample sized jars were enough for 3 chairs. Then I added a coat of metallic gold mixed in with some of the yellow paint. - I don’t have the exact mix but there was more yellow paint than metallic paint. I did a couple of tests before going ahead putting on a coat on the chairs.

I added a very thin coat and then went back with another thin coat. I found it gave a nice more even finish doing it that way.

Step 4: Reupholster the seats

Next came reupholstering the dining chair seats, which meant removing all the staples to take off the old fabric.

The foam and batting I had used before were fine so I kept that as is, but this time I went with a more natural neutral fabric. I actually used inexpensive rugs from IKEA (SORTSO - $4) - they were just big enough to cover the seat and I liked the texture with the stripes. I probably should have washed them to take out the folds but my hand held steamer did the job very well.

I cut one end of the rug so that there was enough fabric to staple to the bottom of the chair seat, and I started by stapling the middle of each side first and then worked my way to the corners.

The rug fabric is pretty thick so I used ⅜” staples. I also used the “trigger” function of my staple gun to do the corners where there was more fabric to go through. It allows you to use both hands if you need to bring down the handle and then you can position the stapler exactly where you need it and then gently pull the trigger. So much easier and more precise!

I did remove a lot of fabric and excess batting at the corners to be able to smooth out the fabric.

I used some fabric protector to make the seats more stain resistant (it’s a good idea to test this type of product on a scrap piece of fabric before using it on your actual).

Step 5: Reattach the seats and add decorative gold accents (optional!)

Then it was just a matter of reattaching the seats to the chairs and adding a little more bling with some faux gems to cover up the visible screws.

And voila, from natural to blue to golden yellow, quite the transformation!

Now that the chairs are done, I’m thinking it’s time to give the banquette a new look as well!