Chair Repair- toothpick trick

I love old chairs.  I see them at yard sales and can't resist bringing them home.
Our dining room set is made up of various old chairs- I love that they're similar, yet not quite matching.


Unfortunately, many of these old chairs need a bit of TLC.
I decided to work on some chair care that I'd been putting off for WAY too long.
Here's the first of three chair repairs I did last weekend...

The seat kept falling off this guy.  No matter how many times I screwed it back in.

My friend's 5 year old child almost fell through when they were staying with us one weekend- yep, that was embarrassing!  
Turns out the holes in the seat board had gotten to big, so the screws didn't have anything to grab to.

Here's a tip for fixing that- courtesy of my father-in-law!



You can see here how the hole in the seat bottom is all frayed.

Take some wooden toothpicks, place them in the hole one at a time and snap off so they're at approximately the same height as the hole.  


Repeat until the hole is filled.

This now gives you a surface to screw into. 

All that's left is to line up the frame onto the seat (a little tricky, since you don't want to turn the seat upside down or your toothpicks may fall out).






Ta-dah!  The chair is as good as new!