In this tutorial, I will show you how I upholstered a chair quickly and without a lot of fuss.
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I&#;m not much of an instructions girl. I&#;d rather spend the time to do something incorrectly, learn from it, then do it correctly before I take the time to read directions.
Sometimes, I&#;ll admit this gets me into trouble. When it comes to serious builds or life/death situations, like epi-pens and murphy bed attaching, I&#;ll definitely read the directions.
When it comes to fun projects, I&#;ll work quickly to make up for the time that it would have taken me to read the instructions or find a YouTube instructional video. I learn way more this route!
I&#;ve reupholstered many things in my day and learned that every piece of furniture is a little different.
This is the quickest way to reupholster a chair or any piece of furniture for that matter. A little extra fabric and some upholstery nails can go a long way!
I love being able to refresh this nice little chair as part of my sewing room revamp!
This snowy weather has got us literally hibernating with 14&#; of snow that fell just this past weekend and it helps if we can stay busy inside with projects to keep our brains going.
One of my most favorite things to do is to be able to use what I have on hand to do projects.
I&#;ve had this chair since I was a child. It came with me to college, to our first home and now to the farmhouse. I love the worn wood structure, but the soft parts needed a little revamping. My grandma had originally recovered this chair.
I found a piece of fabric ticking that needed a purpose. The fabric works perfect for my newly done sewing corner.
Before the redo!
What you&#;ll need for an upholstered chair
- Fabric Scissors
- Fabric (preferably a bit thicker, not a light cotton)
- Pliers
- Hammer
- Upholstery nails and or Decorative upholstery tacks
Iron your chair fabric
Be sure to iron your fabric so it looks nice and smooth when you put it on your chair
Start by taking off the back panel which is fastened by upholstery tacks. I try to salvage the tacks if I can, so to be reused, but most of them were bent or broken.
To my surprise the back of the chair is just cardboard with upholstery tape around it. It&#;s funny how different furniture looks when you start taking it apart and tipping it upside down!
PS. Does anyone ever look under their chairs anyway? interesting
If the pattern is complex, I would usually take off the upholstery before redoing it, in order to use the existing upholstery as a pattern for the new fabric.
I decided that for this piece I would not need to take the existing upholstery off of the chair but instead place the fabric right over the top of the old stuff.
The next part is technical. &#; Place fabric over the structure, fold until all of the existing fabric is covered and cut. I always cut a little larger around, just to have a little working room. We can always cut more off if it seems to get too bulky in the end.
Cut a slit where the arms are, fold the fabric under as much as I can- so to not have any raw edges showing. Then pull the fabric taut and place sewing pins where I want to eventually tack it down.
Working around the top of the chair the idea is to roll the raw edge under, tuck and pin. Think of this kind of project like wrapping a present.
Working with a stripped fabric pattern can be a helpful thing in this situation as I could see where my center was and make sure all the lines were going the same direction and symmetrical.
Once the top front is finished. I laid the back portion, which I removed from the chair, on top of the fabric.
Making sure that the lines going the same direction as the front and cut out. Again, I leave a little extra all the way around, just to be sure I have enough to go around. I fold it tightly over and taped it with painters tape.
Fold like a present and tape!
My grandma had redone it this way and it held up just fine for oh-so many years. Why reinvent the wheel, right?
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I hammer in upholstery nails all around the back and the front piece once I get them all pinned in place and I like how it all lines up.
For the seat, I again, put fabric on top of the seat, cut a bit more than I know I&#;ll need and cut out a big square.
I cut slits in the corner to fit around the wooden corners, fold the fabric under, tuck and fasten with the upholstery tacks underneath the chair. I use the lines in the fabric pattern to help my line things up again.
The final step to Upholstering a Chair
Smooth and pull tightly, but not so much that the fabric starts to bunch. Wrap the raw edges under and fasten with your upholstery tacks and you could add the decorative tacks, if you want. I ran out, so it was the industrial tacks that I had on hand.
Hmm, I&#;ll have to look this up! Found this under one of my chairs arms.
The finished Upholstered Chair!
The finished sewing area. Upholstered Chair. Organized, updated and ready for work!
Check that off my list of things to take care of before spring!
organizing by color is the BEST!This whole chair project took just 1 hour to complete. You can do it, too!
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Tips for Upholstering a Chair
- Take good photos before you start taking your pieces off of your piece. I like to take pictures as I take fabric pieces off, so I know how they were attached/ folded etc.
- Make sure you all your materials ready to go before you start. It&#;s a bummer getting mid way into something and realize you don&#;t have upholstery tacks on hand.
- Working with stripes or plaids can be tricky when first starting off. Aligning patterns on the sides and around corners can be challenging. If you want to try something easy, go with a floral or random pattern print.
Have you upholstered a chair or revamped a piece of furniture like this?
What was the hardest part?
Whether you&#;re looking to restore a thrift store antique or just perk up an old piece of furniture that feels dated, knowing how to reupholster a chair is a fun and useful way to flaunt creativity. Thanks to the proliferation of virtual DIY tutorials, you can easily practice upholstery projects at home, and a dining room chair is a simple entry point. Starting over with new fabric lets you express yourself and, in the case of a vintage chair, preserve something special. &#;A lot of the older pieces are higher quality than less expensive ones on the market, and as a DIY&#;er, you&#;ll have the ability to reflect your exact personality and what you want in your home, rather than having a mass-produced dining room chair that looks just like your neighbor&#;s,&#; says upholstery instructor Kimberley Chagnon, cofounder of Kim&#;s Upholstery, a comprehensive online community that offers virtual and in-person classes.
Once you&#;re comfortable with the basics, you might even move on to curvier and more complicated projects (think wingback chairs). Want inspiration for all those &#;DIY reupholster chair&#; searches? Check out Celine Vanier, an upholsterer and fabric dealer based in France who shares her creations on her Instagram account, @the_girl_with_a_hammer, which has more than 100 upholstery chair transformations to make you beeline to the fabric store.
Before you start obsessing about glamorous aspects of how to upholster a chair, like new fabric and powerful staple guns, read on for a step-by-step tutorial on how to reupholster a dining room chair as well as tips for ripping out old upholstery, choosing the right material, and more.
Can I reupholster a chair myself?
Assuming you&#;re comfortable using tools like a staple gun, screwdriver, and sewing machine, you&#;re probably a good candidate for a DIY reupholstery project. You&#;ll also need to set aside a fair amount of time to either watch videos or take a class in person, as well as research and purchase upholstery fabric for your project. &#;The cost is not inexpensive, and it&#;s also labor intensive,&#; Chagnon says.
When considering how to reupholster a chair, Chagnon also notes that it&#;s important to assess the quality of the support system beneath the seat, especially with older pieces. &#;These things get dry and rot, can fail over time, dust goes through them, smells and spills can settle in and get embedded in the fabric,&#; she says. Chagnon also adds, &#;You wouldn&#;t want to put the effort in with a nice, expensive fabric, and find that five years later the seat is disintegrating out from under you.&#; When you begin the teardown process, which involves ripping out the old fabric and the other layers, you&#;ll usually see quite a bit of dust flying around.
What&#;s more, many people find this DIY home decor project is worth the effort, especially when you consider the environmental implication of restoring an older piece. &#;Every year, the building industry generates millions of tons of waste just in the United States, and home furnishings contribute to this, not just in the throwing away of old furniture but the packaging that goes into delivering new items and the emissions of shipping these things across the country or even the ocean,&#; says interior designer Jennifer Morris, founder and principal at JMorris Design in New York City.
What is the easiest way to reupholster a chair?
The easiest way to reupholster a chair is to start with a simple DIY project that has only a padded seat, such as a dining room chair. A style with a slip seat&#;a removable platform covered with padding, old fabric, and usually some kind of webbing&#;has a gentler learning curve than the type where the upholstery attaches directly to the frame of the chair. Keep in mind that when you remove the padding, you don&#;t necessarily need to replace it with the same amount that it had before. &#;I had a client who inherited some tufted chairs, but we ended up removing the tufting and making them a better match to their modern sensibilities,&#; Morris says.
Can you reupholster over existing fabric?
Although putting new upholstery over old fabric seems like a quick makeover, this is generally a bad idea for a few reasons. &#;It would make [the chair] so bulky,&#; says Manjeet Upple, association manager for the Association of Master Upholsterers and Soft Furnishers (AMUSF) in Buckinghamshire, England. If the original upholstery fabric is dirty, the stains can go through onto new fabric, especially if you&#;ve spilled something greasy.
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