A Vintage Cane Chair Pair Makeover in Grey Velvet

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Once upon a time – well, almost exactly one year ago – an avid Vintage Treasures Hunter spotted a pair of mid-century cane chairs on Kijiji. “Dear husband,” she said as she peered up at her Main Squeeze, “would you mind driving an hour both ways to pick up these amazing-I’ll-never-find-a-deal-like-this-ever-again-totally-vintage-tufted-i-love-them chairs with your truck?” The treasure hunter’s husband nodded his head, rolled his eyes, and picked up the vintage chair pair for his wife whose love language he knew was Antique Shopping. It took a full year and the help of the Vintage Treasure Hunter’s talented mom to fully reinvent the darling Vintage Chair Pair, but they were worth every bit of effort. These special chairs will be loved again for years to come with their new paint job and gorgeous new upholstery.

This is the story of a pair of mid-century cane chairs I found, and how it took us a year to fully finish redoing them.

Vintage midcentury cane chairs painted white and reupholstered in grey cotton velvet.

Originally, I thought that I would take on the daunting task of reupholstering these babies. The more I thought about it, the more the prospect scared me. I knew that painting them wouldn’t be hard, but I really didn’t want to botch the upholstering. It’s not that I paid a whole lot for the chairs, but they’re of good quality and lovely – I wanted to make sure that they were finished properly and would be sturdy and beautiful for years to come.

Vintage midcentury cane chairs painted white and reupholstered in grey cotton velvet.

That’s when I turned to my mom who is a professional upholsterer. She’s had many years of practice, and she lovingly offered to reupholster my chairs for me. Isn’t she the best?! She helped me choose the perfect fabric – a silver coloured cotton velvet – and she spent hours and hours working on making these chairs exactly how I had pictured them in my head.

Vintage midcentury cane chairs painted white and reupholstered in grey cotton velvet.

I think that one of the tricks to being a smart DIYer is knowing when NOT to DIY. In this case, my desire to create heirloom pieces out of this vintage pair that my husband lovingly picked up for me outweighed my desire to learn and possibly fail at trying my had at upholstery.

Vintage midcentury cane chairs painted white and reupholstered in grey cotton velvet.

Here’s what my mom and I did to transform these chairs into updated, heirloom pieces.

Vintage midcentury cane chairs painted white and reupholstered in grey cotton velvet.

I pulled off all of the old upholstery and foam, and pulled all of the old staples out with some pliers and a staple removal tool. This was by far the worst part for me, but it is necessary!

I cleaned the wood with a degreaser and gave it a light sanding. I decided to use DIY chalk finish paint on these because I didn’t want to sand off the old finish completely and I wanted a painted look. I ended up painting the chairs with 3 coats of chalk finish paint that I mixed using Benjamin Moore’s Cloud White – a soft off white colour.

Vintage midcentury cane chairs painted white and reupholstered in grey cotton velvet.

It took me a while to come up with the perfect finishing idea for the paint job on these babies. I finally decided on waxing them with a custom coloured wax I made by mixing a bit of Annie Sloan Paris Grey paint into some clear soft wax. This antiqued the details of the chairs slightly, but not so much that they looked dirty (which was how they looked when I tried using dark wax).

Vintage midcentury cane chairs painted white and reupholstered in grey cotton velvet.

My mom was the mastermind behind the reupholstery of these chairs.

Vintage midcentury cane chairs painted white and reupholstered in grey cotton velvet.

As you can see, she did a spectacular job on the tufting on the back of the seats. The cotton velvet was really tricky to work with, but it sure feels lovely!

Vintage midcentury cane chairs painted white and reupholstered in grey cotton velvet.

She replaced all of the foam & batting in the chair backs.

Vintage midcentury cane chairs painted white and reupholstered in grey cotton velvet.

Look at how perfectly smooth she got the curved backs of the chairs to look. Wow!

Vintage midcentury cane chairs painted white and reupholstered in grey cotton velvet.

Vintage midcentury cane chairs painted white and reupholstered in grey cotton velvet.

These are now resting in our formal sitting room, and they look so lovely here. I can’t wait to finish this room up and show you the rest!

Vintage midcentury cane chairs painted white and reupholstered in grey cotton velvet.

For now, I’m fiddling with this gallery wall and coming up with a solution to make my keyboard look prettier on the opposite wall. Stay tuned!

Vintage midcentury cane chairs painted white and reupholstered in grey cotton velvet.

What do you think of my vintage chair pair makeover? Have a great Wednesday!

Vintage midcentury cane chairs painted white and reupholstered in grey cotton velvet.

24 Comments

  1. These are stunning! I adore the fabric and the finish of the wood. I redid a pair of cane chairs last year. They were simple with no back, just the seat cushion. I have a second set, almost identical to yours now and am eagerly wanting to start doing them and avoiding them. I cannot wait for the end result, but not looking forward to the work! I will he looking for the living room reveal of yours, that space looks like a dream!

  2. Those chairs turned out SO gorgeous! Your Mom did a really fantastic job, and I have no doubt that it was very complex and work-intensive! I hear tufting is. . . tough. 😉

    1. My mom is so talented. The tufting was really hard, as was the curve of the back. I’m so glad she was able to do these for me – they would have looked horrible if I had attempted them. 😉

  3. Just curious how much they were. I just found a pair like this for $70 and thought that was pretty good even though I wasn’t sure what they were worth. I knew it had to be more than that. I love what you did with these. I hope mine turn out as beautiful.

  4. Hi there! I found you on pinterest and wanted to say you rocked this project. The chairs are stunning.
    Your mom did an amazing and such a detailed & elaborate work with the upholstery!
    I’ll re-pin. 🙂

  5. I have the same chairs and debating what to do with them. Where is your mom located? In need of a good upholsterer..

  6. They came out wonderfully!!! I have one similar but I want to keep it in the mid-century design. I need to figure out what to use to sand out the lines in the design because I want to do a walnut wood stain. Any suggestions what to use. Thanks in advance!

  7. I have a pair of chairs very similar and I’m trying to date them or get any info really before I start them. Any idea what time period yours are? Brand? Thanks

  8. Theses turned out amazing! Do you know how many yards of fabric it took for the 2 chairs? I have the same ones. thanks.

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