I've been finding lots of broken chairs recently and decided that many of them deserved a little love. No chair repair is the same so the following instructable does not go into detail about any specific chair but rathe gives some ideas of how to go about fixing what you have. This is by no means a comprehensive set of instructions but should get you started with some simple repairs.

If pieces of the chair are missing and you do not feel inclined to fabricate new components you may also be interested in StumpChair instead. StumpChair is a simple street art/design project that anyone can do with a few simple tools.

The The instructable for StumpChair can be found here:
https://www.instructables.com/id/StumpChair/

Step 1: Chair #1

This chair was in really bad shape. The paint was peeling like crazy and the whole thing was falling appart. It needed to be scraped, sanded and put back together.

1) Disassemble the entire chair.

2} Sand the curved parts (they are harder to scrape so sanding is the easier option).

3} Scrape the flat parts.

4) Paint what ever parts you want to be colored.

5) Reassemble the chair.

Step 2: Chair #2

This one was just missing a leg. Someone had already tried to repair it but didn't do a good job so it fell apart again.

1) Take out the fallen off leg and cut off the dried up glue.

2) Apply glue into the leg holes.

3) Screw the legs back on with short wood screws.

4) Screw the stretcher bars back in place.

Step 3: Chair #3

This chair was in really bad shape. The entire back panel had fallen out of place and needed to be replaced. Also the rest of the back support was faling out.

1) remove the back panel and trace it out on ply wood.

2) Cut out a the replacement back.

3) Drill out the old dowel holes

4) Apply glue in dowel holes.

5) Hammer in new dowels and cut flush with the chair back.

6) Paint the chair.

Step 4: Chair #4

This chair needed the new upholstery on the seat and the stretcher was falling off. Both were quick and easy repairs.

1) Remove the seat by unscrewing it fromt he bottom and remove the old fabric.

2) Cut out the shape of the seat out of the new fabric leaving an approximately two inch border. Staple the fabric oer the seat from the bottom side.

3) Screw the stretcher back in place.

4) Screw the seat back in place.

Step 5: Chair #5

The final chair was also the most difficult to repair. This one was missing a seat entirely.

1) trace out the seat shape using a maker and a large sheet of paper.

2) Cut out the paper outline, check it against the seat opening and trace it onto plywood. When checking the fit of the paper make sure that it fits above the seat cavity and will not fall completely though.

3) Cut out the wood shape.

4) Trace the wooden piece onto upholstery foam and cut it out.

5) Staple on new fabric.

6) Screw the new seat onto the chair.

Step 6: Also See StumpChair

Another option for broken chairs is StumpChair.

See the Instructable here:
https://www.instructables.com/id/StumpChair/

The Vimeo movie here:
https://vimeo.com/52310940

Or the Facebook here:
https://www.facebook.com/StumpChair