Old Chair, New Chair

I inherited this chair from my parents. As you can see, it was a lovely 1990 hunter green. Not bad, but not great. I wanted something else in my foyer, but the green just had to go. So, here is my picture tutorial on "re-upholstering, ghetto style". My Mother, the world's most fantastic seamstriss has re-upholstered several times and she does it the right way...this is the wrong way, I have sewing ADD. I am too impatient to do it the right way. So here's what I did...

Start with chair. Buy 7ish yards of movable, easy to work with fabric. I bought the cheapy bolted decorator fabric at JoAnn for around $6/yard. Grab a staple gun, get lots of staples and of course, a glue gun!



Cut fabric and staple it around wing backs and around arms, leaving 12 inches or so draped over the front of the arm.



See the fabric hanging off the arm?


Pleat the fabric with your fingers and pull around the side of the chair.



Like so...and staple in place with your handy dandy staple gun.



Staple or hot glue a piece of fabric to cover the front part of the chair as seen below...


Just leave the fabric hang off the bottom of the chair, we'll finish the base of the chair later.

Staple the arm fabric down, just below the arm.

Hot glue the fabric in place in all the seams. Pull your fabric tightly to avoid sags and puckering, etc.

I don't have a picture, but next I think I stapled fabric below the arms. I am not a details person, did I mention my sewing ADD? I stapled the underside of the fabric and then pulled the fabric over top of my staples, does that make any sense? That way you don't see the staples.

Next, cut a piece of fabric to fit the back of the front of the chair.

Hot glue the seams and staple it over on the back of the chair.

Next, get yourself some upholstery tacks to make your chair look purdy.

I have no idea what I am trying to show in this picture, but the pictures are in sequential order so see if you can figure it out. This is the back of the chair. :)

Hammer the upholstery tacks in anywhere where the fabric is not yet secured and where you would see staples...upholstery tacks are so much prettier...and only $.99/package at Walmarts.

Cut a piece of fabric for the wing back outsides and fold it under around the curves of the wing.

Riddle the wingback with tacks to keep everything neat and orderly. can you see the tacks around the edge of the wing?

Now, fold and tuck fabric up around legs of chair, and staple fabric up in between the legs to hold in place.

Finally, Cut fabric, and staple it to the top of the chair on the underside of the fabric (so the staples don't show. Turn in the sides of the fabric so there are no raw edges showing.

Staple the fabric under the bottom of the chair. Use upholstery tacks down the back side edges of chair to hold fabric in place on the sides.

I am not going to tell you how to do a seat cushion because I can't describe what I did to mine. It's really not very good, I lost patience for "taking my time and doing it right" (my Mom always said that phrase to me when I was a kid!). You can take apart your original seat cushion and make a pattern out of it.

Anyway, mistreat yourself a seat cusion...and Viola! You have a ghetto-style, re-upholstered chair!

Total time it took to complete project: 2 1/2 hours with children hanging around. Not a bad time investment for the result.