How to Reupholster a Chair Tutorial

Happy Monday! I’m back in full swing with our internet connection restored and a few finished projects under my belt but first let us continue with our cane chairs makeover.

You saw the reveal and how to paint them, now for the upholstering. It is pretty similar to what I did on my other chair makeover except for the seat cushion (that’s a whole other post).

A few new things I learned along the way;

• Be very very careful when using a geometric print.
• Plan out really clearly what design you want on the seat, back, and the back side of the back cushion (all visible) and double check the patterns before cutting the fabric.
• Double welt cording made out of a geometric print fabric does not look as great. You might be better off using a contrasting plain fabric for cording.

That said, would I do it again? In a heartbeat. Yes, it takes a good amount patience and work but there is something about seeing a whole new chair that too all courtesy your hands. Oops can’t forget the good amount of help from another set of hands! 😉 Thank you B for all the help on de-stapling /stapling!

Materials

Fabric

Heavy Duty Staple Remover

Staple Gun

Polyester batting

Double Welt Cord

Hot Glue

 

Tutorial

 

• As y’all know every chair makeover starts with de-stapling. The makers of my chairs had a field day with the staple gun so we spent a good 4-5 hrs to get our chairs staple free. The staples you see over there are just from one seat cushion!

• Once your chair is staple free, strip it down to the bare bones aka. remove the cushions.
• Prep the surface and paint. You can read all about how to paint cane chairs here.
• Slowly remove the staples from the seat cushions too. Save the old seat cushion fabrics as these are going to be your templates for the new fabric.
• Using the old fabric as the template sew the new seat cushions (tutorial to follow soon).

• For the back cushion, plan out your design first. I wanted the fish scales going down in the front and going up in the back side. Cut out the fabric accordingly.
• My back seat cushions were tufted and as I didn’t want that look, I removed the buttons and covered up the holes with a layer of batting.

• Now place the piece of fabric that would go on the back side on the chair back good side facing outward. Staple it to the top first. Pull the fabric taut and staple along the bottom line.

• Staple the fabric all around to secure it.
• Place the seat cushion over it along with the batting, cover with the front fabric. Repeat the previous two stapling steps.

• Trim the extra fabric.
• Hot glue the double welt cord (you can see how I made it last time here) over the staples so that none of your messy work is visible. 🙂

• Screw the seat cushion back on.
• And there you have it your very own brand new DIY’d chair!

Have you made over a chair? How did it go? Will you do it again?

For other posts related to this project see; Reveal, How to Paint a Chair, How to Sew a Seat Cushion with Piping.

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