You may like to change the look of your living space. One of the main attractions of these types of rooms is the beautiful fabric chairs. It may sound difficult to give a whole new look to these chairs all by yourself. However, only with some elements like a cleaner, dye paint, and a piece of sand or lint-free cloth, you can turn your old chairs into chic accent ones.
Okay, but you don’t know how to dye a fabric chair? Nothing to worry about. All it takes is ten minutes and this article. Let’s get started!
How You Can Dye a Fabric Chair
Fabric chairs can be a perfect start to provide your room with a new decor style. However, though the process is not very hard, you have to keep some important things in mind to prevent any type of blunder.
Rather than dyeing an expensive upholstered chair, we advise you to dye an inexpensive one and that you don’t have a great deal of attachment to because the results aren’t always as you hoped.
Check the Fabric
The most important thing to look for before starting the work is if your chair is suitable to be dyed or not. All fabrics are not adaptable with colors if your chair is made of very thick fabric, it may not be a good idea to dye it as you desire.
Velvet, thick woven fabrics, and fabrics with lots of textures are better to avoid. Poly blends or smooth cotton are the most suitable fabrics in case of dyeing. It’s highly suggested to test the paint on a piece of fabric before jumping into the main work.
You can use the dye on a slipcover, matching pillow, or a swatch similar to the fabric of your chair. A slight mistake can ruin the beauty of your chair even more. This way you’ll be able to determine the consistency, and finishing and be familiar with the process also.
Select the Paint
There are several upholstery kits available outside. If you buy one, you’ll get everything you need to dye a fabric chair in one package. If you only want to purchase the paint you can go for a liquid fabric coat paint. Here you can take a look at our detailed article on fabric dying.
You can test the mediums like Folk Art Fabric Medium or Martha Steward Fabric Medium with acrylic latex paints vs acrylic paints. This may work well as dyes but will not make the fabric any softer. You can choose from any latex paint that matches the shade you want. It’s better to make a solution rather than applying the paint directly to get the perfect finish.
Describing the Process Step by Step
If you’ve bought a kit, you may have everything you need. If not, some things are very important before starting the process such as a liquid dye, a penetrating solution, gloves, mask, cleaner, spray bottle, sand, or a piece of lint-free cloth. If you follow the steps accordingly, at the end of the day you’ll be proud of how quickly you got the texture you wanted.
Step 1: Prepare yourself
Paints are not something very pleasant to be on yourself. Besides, as a spray bottle will make your work easy, some solutions can hit your face as well. This may not cause any dangerous harm to you, but being extra cautious is never out of style. It’s recommended to cover your face with a mask and put on hand gloves.
Step 2: Clean the dust
As your fabric chair may have got old and it remains uncovered. There may be a lot of dust on it. If you don’t clean the chair properly before applying the paint, you’ll never get a smooth, pleasant texture.
You can wash the dust with a piece of dry cloth and then spray water to ready the chair for painting. But to get a better result, use a fabric cleaner. Spray the chair carefully over the entire surface.
Now take a Tampico brush and agitate the whole surface circularly. After covering the whole fabric area, let it be like that for up to five minutes. After that, take a piece of lint-free cloth and wipe the whole surface gently. Your chair is now ready to absorb the paint properly.
Step 3: Make the Solution
To get a softer fabric output, never use the paint directly on the fabric. This may result in an uncomfortable finish. If you use a dilute solution or any other suitable solution, that will be better. Here we’ll discuss two types of solutions that you can apply.
If you have the kit, you’re almost there. Take the bucket, color coat, and penetrating solution included. Remember to mix them in the correct ratio. Otherwise, the texture won’t be good. For the perfect texture, take two parts of the fabric coat and one part of the penetrating solution. Mix them together and your dyeing solution is ready.
If you don’t have the kit or don’t want to go for this. You can also make a dilute solution by only mixing the paint and water. Here you also have to maintain the correct ratio. Three cups of paint and two cups of water will be okay.
Step 4: Apply the Coating
If you have a wood-armed chair with only seating cushions, don’t forget to cover the areas like arms and legs where you don’t want any paint. If you have prepared the color and penetration solution mix, your work is nearly done.
All you have to do is spray the solution all over the surface and continue coating this way until you get the perfect coverage. At last, when your coating is fully done, take the lint-free cloth and wipe the whole surface gently to have an even distribution of the paint. Let the fabric dry for at least a day.
But if you’ve prepared the paint and water solution and own a royal chair or a chair with some prominent sewing points, and designs on it, you have to follow some more steps. First, apply the first coating smoothly. There will be some areas where you can’t just cover the dye with sprays.
You have to use a brush on those areas to get better coverage. Take a brush and apply a minimal amount of paint to those areas. For example, the areas where the seat cushion corners vertically to meet the arms. Now after your first coat dries, take a fine sandpaper and sand the coat. You should continue the coating and sanding process like this until you get the perfect finishing.
Frequently Asked Questions and Answers
Painting upholstery furniture with nontoxic rit dye is something that completely changes the atmosphere of your drawing room. Upholstered furniture diy can include a sofa, couch, soft leather chair, etc. Below are some critical questions about overall paint upholstery using rit and chair makeovers.
Is fabric paint durable?
Yes, you’ll usually not have any issues with fabric paint once it’s fully dried and heat set. They last for a reasonable time. This paint or paint with fabric medium is capable to uphold many cleanings and washings.
Can I use fabric dyes for upholstery?
Yes, you can. However, this might not be the ideal practice at all. The dyes for dying upholstery are made specially, but if mixed and applied correctly, fabric dye powders and liquids meet the same requirements. Upholstery fabric and light-colored shades absorb dye better and produce the strongest pigment. Even though the dye hides patterns, they may still be seen through patterned upholstery.
Conclusion
An old fabric chair can be updated with fabric dye without the need for time-consuming and complicated reupholstery. Here, in this write-up, we tried to cover the necessary procedures for different conditions of dyeing a fabric chair. Hopefully, these steps will help you to get the wanted result in minimal time and correct effort.
Are you fascinated by natural dyeing? If it is, there’s no way you’ll want to miss this article.
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