Ikea hack: Poang chair recover with paint and a custom cover

Follow along as I share how I recovered a Craigslist find for the nursery. I made new covers and after some paint, this IKEA hack was the perfect chair for the nursery! I used foam, fabric, and some snaps to make the custom cover that matches the other chevron fabric from the rest of the room.

As I shared in my last post, I have a lot of projects I finish before going to bed rest that I never got to share here, so I am going to start with one I wish I would have taken pictures of the process. I know not a lot of people would not go the DIY route especially when it's just an Ikea chair, but as you all know I love renovating them!

For the nursery I knew I wanted the poang chair, at first I wanted the rocking chair version, but in one visit to Ikea, I tried both and found the rocking version uncomfortable for me (I'm pretty tall) to get up easily.

Ofcourse on that trip to Ikea I did not get the chair, since I had months before I was actually going to start with the nursery, I hunted on Craiglist until I found the chair and the footstool for $20, but with no covers.

That was actually perfect because I wanted to make my own cushions and covers anyway. I wanted a thinker foam because I figured I'll be on that chair a lot, the price of the chair and covers I wanted at Ikea would have been $198 ($129 for the chair and $69 for the footstool) but I actually spent only $60 on mine making the cushions from scratch thanks to holiday sale coupons =] I say pretty good!

I also decided to paint the structure and made all the covers very easy to remove because I figured I'll be washing it very often, I decided to attach it to the chair differently, so that the back will be covered with fabric, it seemed a lot clearer to me than the original Ikea covers.

Below you can see both the footstool and chair together, I used the ZigZag twill storm print from Premier prints (you will see a lot of that fabric in the nursery) I used a 3″ thick foam for the cushions and them I wrap it on lots of batting. I made plain white covers for the cushions and then the cover in the fancy fabric.

For the back I actually made 3 separate cushions that are “tied together”by the cover, 2 small ones for the top that are in the slip portion of the cover, they have back snaps so that the cushions don't end up all over the place, and a bottom one that goes in the pocket of the front. To close the back I also added snaps so that the look would be more uniform.

The bottom piece has a zipper that secures the cushion inside the cover and has side straps that overlap to secure the bottom piece to the chair, I also secured them with snaps.

I really liked the way it turn out and even tho the fabric is pretty light, the fact that the covers are easy to take and wash makes it a lot better. I've been sitting there a lot to “test” it out just holding Curly and so far I am loving it! Ken also loves it but for some reason he likes to lay on the center rug of the nursery more than the chair hehe.

I hope this inspire someone else to also try the DIY route, it's so much cheaper and of course I love the fact that you can customize the shape of the covers.

I hope everyone is having a lovely weekend!!
XOXO

ps. I'm having lots of contractions but no baby yet! Tomorrow is my due date so we'll see if this little peanut wants to come soon =]