A new dining table calls for new dining chairs.
It’s a law or something, right?
Shhh.
That’s what I told Handy Husband.
I wanted something completely different from what I’ve been sitting on for the past 15 years. FIFTEEN!
It seemed like a good time to mix things up.
I really wanted these chairs, but they wouldn’t push under my new table and space is at a premium in my dining nook.
Instead, I found a similar style with a higher back. It’s the TMS Angelo Home Hermosa Dining Chair from Wayfair.
I loved the blue color, but not the yellow. At least, not for my space. I bought the chairs knowing I’d want to make them over straight away.
Except, as I am known to do, I needed to overthink about the makeover for awhile. I had just come off a challenging painting project and my confidence was rattled! Did I want to spray paint the chairs and what color would I use? Did I want to cover over that yellow part in a more permanent way? I wasn’t sure.
While wandering Michael’s looking for inspiration (anyone else do that?), I stumbled upon some fabric tape. I didn’t know fabric tape was a thing. Clearly, I need to wander the aisles of craft stores more often.
Handy Husband is probably saying, “No, you don’t need to do that.” Ha!
I decided I liked the print and color of this fabric tape and it might work as an interim makeover solution. Plus, I just wanted to try the tape out. Curiosity is a powerful motivator!
There’s no tutorial here, folks. It’s cut a strip of tape to size and wrap it around the chair legs. I started off trying to line up the pattern, but quickly realized I’m not a perfectionist you couldn’t really tell either way.
The tape has a backing, so it’s not like duct tape or some other tape that sticks to itself. Just peel off the backing and position the tape. It was also easy to reposition the tape, which I had to do multiple times. Wrapping a tapered leg is not easy.
It took two rolls of tape to cover the yellow paint on my four chairs. Total investment (because I always use a coupon at Michael’s) was $5.98 and an hour of time.
I have been surprised with how durable the tape appears to be over the course of this first month in use.
In full disclosure, it’s not a perfect solution. There were 3 or 4 pieces of tape that started to peel up in the first few days after the makeover that I secured with hot glue. I haven’t needed to do any other “touch-ups” so far.
For that reason though, I’m calling this a temporary fix and not a longterm solution. I don’t think we are in 15-year territory here, folks.
The stakes were really low with this experiment, so this was a good way for me to satisfy my curiosity and to stretch myself creatively. Besides, how often do you see printed patterns on wood dining chairs? Not often! I’m happy I went out on a limb to see what would happen.
The only unanswered question is have I decided my long-term chair makeover plans? Of course not! I need to overthink it some more.
P.S. A few notes about this fabric tape and how I used it on the chairs.
- I don’t know how the fabric tape would hold up if you have pets that are hard on furniture in terms of scratching or constantly rubbing against the chair legs.
- Not only are my chair legs tapered, they are rounded at the bottom. I made several small snips in the last piece of tape closest to the end of the chair leg. That way, I could push each little strip of tape down and the strips would lie on top of each other more nicely to finish off the bottom of the chair leg.
- I had a hard time finding fabric tape online other than at Michael’s.
P.P.S. A few notes about the chairs from Wayfair.
- The quality seems fine for a chair that ships to you and you have to screw the legs in yourself. I have had to tighten the legs a couple of times.
- Don’t sit on them with any sort of metal rivets on your pants. They will scratch. I found that out the hard way. Until I find some touchup paint, I used one of my kids’ markers to color in the scratches. Totally worked!
- The biggest issue I have in relation to the chairs is with OUR flooring. We have ceramic tile floors, so there is some unevenness between the tile and grout. The self-adhesive floor pad keeps slipping off as the chair gets moved around on these uneven surfaces. This happened when I used the factory floor pads and when I used my own from Home Depot. So far, I’ve had the best luck with hot glueing a piece of felt to the end of each chair leg. If you have wood floors or a rug under your table I doubt this will be an issue.
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If you want to know more about my old dining room table and chairs, here are some posts for you!
Refinish Wood Dining Chairs Without Tools
Oh, and a few more good ones!