Childs' Lawn Chair

As I was straightening the garage this summer, I ran across an old childs' lawn chair.

Although, it was in pretty rugged shape, the youngest grandchild liked to sit in it. I kept waiting to see if he would fall through, but it survived the summer. Time to get rid of it or see if it could be salvaged.

Tools and materials

Old lawn chair

Scissors

Ruler

Strap cutter or scissors

Screw driver

Rotary punch

Scratch pad

Bar Keepers Friend or some cleanser for the frame

Material - I had some vinyl upholstery material

I am not sure how old this chair is, or where I picked it up. The screws are rusty and so are the rivets. I couldn't replace the rivets, so I decided to reuse the screws. Let the retro shine through.

Remove all the screws. These were slot screws so they took a straight screw driver.

Scrub the frame of the chair with Bar Keepers Friend or some other cleanser and dry well. At this point a decision needed to be made about whether to paint it or not. Aluminum can be hard to paint and everything else was left as is, so we decided not to paint.

Measure the width of the original straps. Our straps were 2 1/4 inches wide. I had some brown vinyl that had been laying around for awhile and decided to use that.

The weight of the vinyl was similar to the weight of leather. We have a leather strap cutter and decided to try it on the material. It worked adequately. The material could be cut with scissors and a ruler. Probably 1/2 yard of material would be adequate.

This chair took 3 vertical straps and 6 lateral straps. The vertical straps are about 27 inches long and the lateral straps are about 17 inches long.

The leather strap cutter works better with 2 people, so my husband graciously assisted with that process.

The vertical straps, which run from the top of the chair to the front of the chair, are put on first. The material must be folded in 3rds at the ends. Using the rotary punch, on the largest setting, punch a hole. Make sure that the hole goes through all 3 pieces of material. Thread the screw through the holes,and place it in the hole on the frame of the chair. Screw the material down.

After running the strap to the front of the chair, measure for the correct length. Make sure to pull the material taut. After adjusting the length, fold the end in 3rds, punch the hole, add the screw and attach to the chair. Repeat this process for the remaining 2 straps.

We are now ready to weave the lateral straps through the vertical straps. The ends of the straps will be prepared and attached in the same way as the vertical straps. Both ends will go over the frame of the chair.

I chose to start the 1st strap at the top of the chair, with an under, over, under sequence. The 2nd strap would go over, under, over. Repeat the alternating pattern with the remaining straps.

Remember to keep the material taut.

The chair is now ready for use. This is an easy fix and since I had all of the materials and tools, cheap.