Saturday, April 7, 2012

Reupholsterd Chairs!

Well here they are!  Finally!  The reupholstered chair project!

Truth be told, I've had 3 of the 4 done for about a month, but I didn't want to post until all 4 were finished.

Here is the GLORIOUS before and after photo!



CAN YOU EVEN STAND IT!????  I sure cant :)


For Part 1 of this project click HERE to see how I repainted the chairs.

Reupholstering a chair turned out to be pretty easy.  The first one took me about an hour to do, and the last one probably only took me about 20 minutes.  So as soon as you figure out your technique for the first one, it obviously goes a lot quicker.

Supplies you will need:
Good Scissors
Staple Gun - you need either a corded one that plugs in, or one that is powered with an air compressor
Foam
Batting
Fabric
Hot Glue - depending on your chair


Step one:  Once you've removed all of the original fabric and foam, cut your foam to the size of the seat.  I got a big roll of foam at Hobby Lobby with a 40% off coupon.  Batting will go over this so it doesn't have to be extremely precise.


Step 2:  Add batting.  I got mine at Joann with a 40% off coupon.  I bought 3 yards for this project.

Once you've cut the batting to a size that will wrap around the chair well, flip the chair over and put it on your table, or another working surface.  Pull the batting taught, and start stapling away to attach it to the bottom of the chair.  Then trim the excess.


Step 3:  Add the fabric.  Turn your chair back over, and much like you did with the batting, cut a piece of fabric that you know will wrap around to the bottom of the chair.  Also, if you have a pattern like I do, make sure it is lined up straight.


Then flip the chair over again, and put a few staples in to keep the fabric in place.  At this point on some chairs you may be able to just start stapling away.  My chair has a few more intricate parts with the legs, so I had to figure out how to work around them.

For the back legs of my chair, I cut away excess fabric, and folded the fabric under to make a nice edge around the legs, and then I just stapled the fabric on the side and back of the chair tight.

The front legs are a bit different and have some detailing and I added nailhead trim to them.  My first step for the front legs was to pipe hot glue around the decorative legs so that I could glue the fabric in exactly the place I wanted it to be.


I pulled the fabric tight and stuck it to the hot glue.  Then I took an exacto knife and ran it over where I had put the hot glue to cut off the excess fabric.

Then I was left with this:


At this point you're pretty much done with the chair.  I pulled the rest of the fabric tight to the bottom of the chair and stapled it.  You could add any kind of trim to the chair to cover this edge up.  I chose to use nailhead trim.  For this, I purchased a nailhead trim kit from Beacon Fabric.


You could just buy the upholstery nails and nail them all in a row.  But this kit makes it much easier.  There are nails on a row, and you nail a real nail in place every 5 nailheads or so.  I will say that this project probably would have looked a little better if I had used all individual nails...but it was much faster and easier and there was much less profanity on my part by using this kit.  I do however think that if you used this kit on a much bigger project - a headboard or something- it would look better than individual nails.

You must nail the upholstery nails in with a mallet, NOT a hammer.  A hammer will dent the nails and dent and chip paint off of your project.  Just get a mallet already.


Once you're done, this is what the finished trim will look like!  Beautiful!


Then flip the chair back over.  Pull all of the fabric tight around the bottom of the chair, and staple the crap out of it.  Then trim away all of the excess fabric.


I am SO pleased with how these chairs came out!  And I'm so proud of myself for doing it myself :)



This project cost a little more than I had planned, but that is because I purchased a much more expensive fabric than I had thought I would.  That's really the factor in how expensive an upholstery project will be.  Plus, I bought about a half a yard more than I thought I needed...just in case.  But I can definitely use the extra fabric in another project some day.

Here's a breakdown of my costs:

Chairs off of Craigslist: $30 total
Foam: $13
Batting: $5
Fabric: $100
Nailhead Trim Kit: $20, but I only used about 1/4 of the kit, so $5

PRICE PER CHAIR = $38.25!  I think this is a pretty fabulous price!

Happy Upholstering!

No comments:

Post a Comment