Reupholstering basics!

Hello Everyone!


 This post is to shed some light on a craft that I found really intriguing but nervous to pursue. Reupholstering! I had always been so nervous to take on reupholstering because of all the elements it required but once I broke it down it wasn't as intimidating as I thought!

Things you will need:

Fabric of your choosing to cover chair in question
Upholstery stapler (with staples)
Screw gun
Extra screws (these might not be needed but in my case they were)
I also needed spray paint for the legs of my chair, also optional
Fabric foam to be the padding inside your chair


Let's Begin!

This was the set of chairs I started on. I figured their shape was pretty simple and I only paid $20 for all four and a table. So first thing I did was disconnect the seat from the chair. 

You can see how gross the wood is on the bottom of the chair so I went out and bought some mdf to cut out new bottoms. I jigsawed them out using the old bottom as a stencil. After I took off the old fabric and foam, I used that as a guideline of how much I would need of my own material.

Layla decided to help

I sadly don't have very many photos of the rest of the process but I'll break down the directions:

*After using the old fabric and foam for guidelines for my new supplies (adding an extra two or three inches) I got ready to staple the foam to the bottom of the chair.

* When stapling the foam make sure you bring it to the edge of the chair and staple it in a way that the crease the staple is causing is minimal. The reason for that is because when you put fabric over it, you dont want to have a bunch of bumps that make everything look funky. You can space out the staples a couple inches apart. 

*After you've stapled your foam all the way around, its time for fabric! When you staple your fabric you bring it all the way around to the bottom of the seat instead of to the edge like we did with the foam. You need to pull it really taught so once again, there is no gathering. It's a trial by error process. 

*After you finish putting the fabric on the bottom you repeat the same process for the rest of your chair.  And viola! You've just reupholstered like a pro! 

I don't have a finished product shot of what I did with the table unfortunately but I had to sew the tops of the chairs to get a proper fit. Which is a whole other obstacle I won't get into on here! Here's what mine looked like in the end:

Well goodluck with each of your projects and if you have any other upholstery pointers I would love to hear them!

Miss you always,

Shanna

xo