Giant Wooden Spool Chair

D.I.Y- Giant Wooden Spool Chair

Lucky for me my neighbor left three of those large wooden spools on the curb yesterday. I only took two because one was rusted, and the boys across the street wanted it for a table in their backyard. Seemed fair to me!

When I saw these spools I knew I wanted to make a chair of sorts, so I went off to the local fabric store and bought some staples and some clearance fabric -1 1/4 yard-, to be exact. I already had a staple gun, black gloss paint, a paint roller and sand paper and that made this project fairly inexpensive. I stopped off at the local dollar store to buy one of those cushioned, foam covers for a bed. They didn't have a queen size so I had to buy two twin ones. I actually bought them separately and went back for the second one when I realized one would not be enough padding.

Once I got home, I started sanding the spool with 150 grit sandpaper and took off the rough edges on one end of the spool and gave the rest of it a nice once over to make sure my paint would adhere. Next, I used my tiny roller and started painting.

I used the sander to keep the spool from rolling down the driveway

It was 100 degrees outisde so the paint dried quickly and I was able to add numerous coats. I didn't paint the bottom or the top of the spool since I knew they wouldn't be seen. There are slats and nail holes so I had to use a small paint brush to get to those hard to reach areas that my roller couldn’t get.

Since the paint dried fairly quickly I started on the seat and folded the twin sized foam in half and cut it the diameter of the spool top. Then I flipped it and put the fabric on and gave it a sit. I realized that there wasn't enough padding and I ran back to the dollar store bought the second one.

This time I decided I needed to cover the edge/side of the top because I didn't want bare wood under the fabric. I cut it about two inches wider. And I didn’t take a photo… silly me.

Once I was set, I put my fabric on top and started to staple --but not before I figured out I had bought the wrong size staples; instead of returning them to the store I went to a neighbor and lucky me, they had the right size staple gun for my stapling needs.

I realized this wasn't going to work since I had the spool right-side up and was blindly stapling-- I didn't want to staple a finger so I flipped it upside down. I double checked to make sure the fabric was taut and then I started stretching, folding and stapling.

The raw edges- not pretty

Halfway around I saw the raw edges and knew I needed to make it "professional looking", so I started popping staples and folding the raw edge under and re-stapling. After re-applying, I hammered all the staples to be sure they were firmly secured. You can see my folds are spaced evenly and folded the same direction... This is key to a good looking finish.

Clean edges- very nice

Here is the final product. I am very pleased with it- I have never upholstered anything before but many years ago my Grammy told that it was fairly easy to do. I'm glad I finally tried it out!

Trash to Treasure, baby!

xx Tyna xx