DIY Recovering a Chair

Instead of writing about my life this post I figured a DIY would be fun.  Husband found a chair outside last year in somebody else's trash.  His best thought was to bring it into our house.  I was NOT happy!  He uses this chair almost daily playing the Wii in our bedroom.  It wasn't in that bad of shape so I figured reupholstering it would make me like it a little bit more.

Supplies needed:
Chair
Fabric (enough to cover your chair)
Batting (optional)
Scissors
Pliers to remove staples
Staple gun with staples
Hammer

The original nasty chair that husband pulled from the trash.

Take the screws out of the backside and bottom side of the chair.  Then pop the back piece off. This is what you get.

Start removing the staples.  I think this is the most tedious part of the reupholstering process. 

You can use the fabric you remove to measure your new piece if you care to do so.

I wanted to add a little batting to create a little more newness feeling to the chair.

Once you have the batting to the correct size you can cut your piece of fabric. I try to leave enough room so that I can grab a hold of the fabric and not have to do a little dance of trying to hold fabric and not stapling my fingers.

Start with stapling the four centers.  Then staple opposite sides making sure to pull the fabric tight.  (I guesstimated how much fabric I needed at the store and barely made it on the seat of the chair!)

I may go overboard on the staples sometimes but I don't want to fabric to shift once it is put into place.  I hammer down the staples to just ensure that everything will remain flat where it is needed.

What it should look like once you have stapled all the way around.  For the corners I just leave them for last and then pull everything super tight to avoid wrinkles.

Trim off the excess fabric and staple the corners just a tiny bit more.  The extra stapling is pretty much optional.

Pop the newly reupholstered back into the plastic holder.  Reattach the back and seat back to the frame.

Lastly, enjoy your newly covered chair and surprise husband with the final results!  (He LOVES it!)

Close up of the fabric I chose for the back.

Close up of the fabric for the seat.

This reupholstering cost me a total of I think $20.00 and about 45 minutes of my time.  Originally I had hoped to find a really cool gaming fabric or something with Mario.  When I couldn't find that I found these nautical fabrics and couldn't decide which I liked more so I bought both of them!  I didn't tell my husband that I was doing this at all.  He is a good enough sport though to love me through my projects.  Coming up soon will also be my first door wreath for Easter!