How to fix a rush seat

I purchased some old teak dining chairs through Facebook Marketplace with the intention of fixing them up. It was a bit of a daunting project but definitely doable once you got past the initial struggles of getting everything straightened out. There are a few tips and tricks I learned. So let me show you how to fix a teak seat no matter what style of woven seat or what type of fiber you use.

How to fix a rush seat

I think this is the longest it has ever taken me to write a blog post about a project. Partly because I was busy with all my cats and their health issues. Then the holidays, kids, and family in general got in the way.

That’s not to say I’m not excited about how the chairs turned out. I can say now that after having them in our dining room for a few months, they’ve held up great and done a good job. So let me share my wisdom about this particular project.

As I mentioned at the beginning, I bought 4 vintage chairs from Facebook Marketplace for a cool $25. These chairs are not vintage and are actually still on sale at Pottery Barn for $249 each. Yes, you heard that right. They are the Isabella dining chairs that used to be in the same dark color as my chair, and are now only available in the natural wood color that I love.

So, with the added cost of all the supplies purchased to fix these chairs, I ended up with very affordable chairs at about $34 each compared to what they cost at Pottery Barn.

What is a fast seat chair?

At first glance, people unfamiliar with these types of chairs might think they are made from some type of bamboo chair. However, rattan chairs are woven from twisted natural materials.

Another popular option for attaching chairs is to use woven cane. If you have a cane chair, you can purchase ready-made cane on a roll to attach to the chair seat.

What kind of rush is there?

The traditional reed seat was usually made from twisted grasses that grew in the manufacturing area. Today, the most common reed seats are made from paper fibers and natural reed/cane (a plant common in freshwater swamps). However, there are also some less common alternative rope materials.

Determine the structure and shape of your booster seat.

There are many different shapes of tarpaulin chairs. Some chairs do not have a removable seat and the tarpaulin is woven directly onto the chair frame. Before you begin your chair weaving project, it is important to determine how the chair will be assembled and what shape the seat will take.

The easiest seat shape to fix is ​​a symmetrical square. When the shape is curved and asymmetrical like the chairs I use, it becomes more difficult.

In my opinion, weaving a chair seat with a nearly curved shape is the most difficult to weave.

Tips and Tricks I Learned to Fix a Surge Seat

Locate old fibers before removing them.

Before removing the old feather fibers from the chair seat, it is important to use a marker or pencil to mark where and how to wrap the corners. This will help you later when weaving the new seat to get the same look as before.

It was also very helpful to mark the “front/top” and “back/bottom” sides on the empty chair seat frame before weaving the feathers. When flipping and rotating the seat, you can quickly get confused about which side is which.

Determine the shape of your seat

I’ve drawn some common rush seat shapes including the type of chairs that don’t have a removable rush seat frame but where you weave the rush directly onto the chair frame.

Number 5 is the shape of my chair seats.

Find the right instructional video for your lunge seat shape.

After I decided on the shape of my new seat, I started looking for good YouTube videos to help me with the process of weaving the new rush seats.

Fortunately, there are a lot of great tutorials out there on how to re-weave a chair, which is why I didn’t make my own video. No one wants to learn from me when there are professionals showing you how to do it. It really helped me a lot and I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the videos. This is not a project that can be easily taught with just a written tutorial and pictures.

I was thrilled when I finally found a tutorial for the exact shape of my teak seat (#5) from Pottery Barn’s Isabella Chair. I would have never been able to figure out the angles of the seat without the video below. The guy from Peerless Rattan Supplies knows what he’s doing and I don’t think anyone else could do a better job of explaining the weaving process. (You can also purchase all of the supplies from their website.)

It’s also helpful to watch videos of other types of rush seats so you can see the difference between them.

Use wood glue to secure the knots.

Obviously you can’t use the entire reed spool to weave with as it is too big. You have to work with less reed fiber. This means you will run out of fiber and need to knot another strand at the bottom of the woven section to keep going. I secured these knots with some wood glue (or another strong glue) to keep the knots from unraveling over time.

Rushing towards the paper hurts your fingers less.

I didn’t like using gloves for this project since I have more control with my bare hands. However, paper fibers are easier to work with with your bare hands than natural grass fibers.

Soaking the fibers before weaving

Use a large bowl filled with warm water to soak the mint for about 5 minutes. The mint can soak quickly and then fall apart and become soft. I used a bath towel to remove any remaining water after soaking.

It is very important to soak the reeds as it helps in the whole weaving process and makes the reeds easier to handle.

Symmetry and square angles are the most important.

The entire chair weaving process will not work if you don’t keep everything square and symmetrical. Evenly woven seats will not meet in the middle of the seat if the fibers aren’t symmetrical at all corners.

In order to get a symmetrically woven chair, I had to wrap it three times in the front at the corners instead of once in the back. This is explained very well in the video.

Wooden dowels and pegs are essential to keep everything upright. Large spring clips help keep everything tight and level too. The videos show how to use them.

Below you can see that there are three threads on the left wrapped with one fiber strand…

Opposite the following image of the back corner rolled evenly once:

Fill the rush seat with cardboard.

It is very important to fill the gaps between the front and back woven sides of the seat completely with something. Cardboard cut into triangles works really well for this step. The old seats were not stuffed with cardboard but with more natural fibers. This helps keep the seat stable and prevents it from sagging. Put as much cardboard as you can in the pockets and leave the center open so you can finish weaving.

In the photo below you can see how the triangular pieces of cardboard fit nicely into the four gaps inside the seat.

New Rush Seat Seal

I used a clear protective film to seal the paper fibers together. I’m not sure if you really need to do this, but I worry about people spilling food on the paper, and some sort of protection would help prevent any liquid or grease from getting on the paper.

I ended up using the same General Finishes Flat Out Flat Topcoat that I used on the wood. I’ll talk about that later in the post.

You can change the color of the rush fibers.

My friend Diane stained her chairs using wood stain which is a great way to change the look of your chairs.

Preserving the natural color of the wood in the lounge chairs

This part has nothing to do with the pile seat fabric, but rather the fact that I wanted my chairs to look like the light-colored Isabella dining chairs that are still on sale at Pottery Barn. I love the look of natural wood, but wood also needs some sort of protection.

So I stripped and sanded all four chairs down to bare wood.

First, I tried a light coat of champagne wood stain on a small section I had bought for a different project and never used. I thought the stain looked too yellow, which you can see below.

So, I sanded the area again and tried a different solution which I found in General Finishes Flat Out Flat Topcoat. I had never used this paint before and I can now say that I love it. It has a matte protective finish and only slightly changes the look and color of the wood, which I will show you in the following photo.

I applied three coats of Flat Out Flat to the raw wood and skipped the wood stain altogether and months later I am still happy with the results.

Beech chairs ready to use in our dining room

Choos,