Last summer, a pair of our deck chairs bit the dust. Not horribly surprising – they were 10 years old, were originally pretty cheap, and they’d been living outside for 10 years. We sat in them and the seat gave way. I wasn’t really looking forward to replacing them – money’s kind of tight right now, and deck chairs just aren’t something I want to buy.
Clearly, something had to be done. I figured, surely, there had to be a way to replace the seat, right? And then it came to me – duct tape. Duct tape can do anything! It was worth a try, anyway – duct tape is cheap, comes in a bunch of colors, and even if it didn’t work, I would only be out $10 or so.
The first step was by far the hardest – removing the old seat. It involved a lot of cutting and, since the plastic was disintegrating, a lot of mess. Definitely an outside job, which I discovered about 2 minutes after starting the job inside. But after a lot of cutting and unweaving, I had a seatless chair. Then it was time to start laying across the strips of duct tape.
I figured I’d need multiple layers of tape to make it strong enough. First, I did a strip of tape sticky side up, wrapping one end around one side bar of the chair:
Then, I stretched that piece tight across to the other side, wrapped around the bar, and sealed it on itself. 
This was followed by 2 more strips, slightly shorter than the first, so as not to involve the bars, sticky side down:
This was followed by another strip, sticky side down, and around the bars. I made sure to pull this one really tight, because I know the tape will stretch a little over time. This continued until I’d done the entire seat of the chair in that direction:
Then, a strip of the colored duct tape (colored tape is more expensive than silver, so I only used the colored on the strips that would show) over each of these strips:
I just love the bright teal color!
After this, it was time for the perpendicular strips. This was a little trickier, because I had to weave the strips between the strips I’d just made.
I started, just like before, with a strip, sticky side up, and wrapped around the bar at the back of the chair. The other end was loose though – I couldn’t attach it yet, since I’d need it free to weave:
Same as before, I followed this with 2 shorter strips, sticky side down – making sure I had enough sticky end left over on the first strip to secure the strip at the end. Then, another strip of sticky side down, but wrapping around the bar at the back of the chair, and short enough to leave a couple inches of sticky end from the first strip.
Then came the weaving. This was a little tricky, because I had to make sure the sticky end didn’t get caught on anything. It didn’t take long to get the hang of it though. After weaving it through, I secured the sticky end around the bar at the front of the chair, and tucked the remainder under the teal strip and stuck it down securely. (I could have topped these strips in the teal as well, but I liked the contrast with the silver.)
Then I did the same for the rest of the strips, until the entire seat of the chair was completed:
All in all, the whole process took about an hour or so, and was easily completed in front of the television for entertainment! I’ve still got to do the matching chair, and I have to figure out something to do with the top of the back of the chair, but that can wait. The chair is functional now, and that’s what’s most important! Plus, it’s pretty and fun, and the whole project cost around $10!
