Kitchen chair reupholstering (autumn 2012)

Before, fabric is dingy and padding is wimpy

After, fresh fabric and a lot more padding

I've been bothered by our dining room chairs for years. At first, it was the sea foam fabric with grape leaves... but I have no experience recovering chairs so we lived with it. But now they are stained, after years with little goopy kids. And my Mom tightened up the joints on a recent visit, so it seemed like a good time to give them a face lift.

Marker, oatmeal, grape juice - you name it - plus there is a very hard edge 

I started by flipping over the chairs. Only 4 screws kept the seats in place; one on each corner. 

Screws were easy to find and remove

All of the seats have a hard piece of wood holding up the cushion, although the old strap supports are still visible underneath some.

Wooden support that someone used to replace the original straps

Next, I stripped all of the existing layers off of the seats. A pair of pliers was all I needed - I tugged onto the old fabric, not caring if it ripped, and the old staples gave way. Note: gloves would have been wise, as I got scratched by staples a few times.

All of the pieces are ready to go: fabric, foam, batting, seat

Next, I cut out 1" thick foam from a roll I bought at a local fabric store (www.gstreetfabrics.com). I used the seat as a guide and hoped the foam would soften the wooden ledge created by the supporting pieces. I traced a seat over and over with a sharpie pen. Then I used a pair of scissors to cut out the shapes.

Seat shape traced onto foam, exactly the size of the seat

Next I laid out the fabric. I had this leftover from last year, when I thought I could use it for curtains. It was way too heavy and ripped the curtain rods brackets out of the wall! I liked the pattern but the neutral colors and thick texture made it sort of blah for any large expanse. Recently, I started looking at chevrons and other geometric patterns for the kitchen chairs... and after burning several hours online, noticed how much color I already have in the kitchen. Anything more would be overkill. Thankfully I remembered this fabric before hunting down anything new. In small doses, within each chair's frame, it is perfect! Just enough pattern.

I added roughly 2" of buffer for the fabric, so I'd have enough to secure around the seat

I was not too careful with the sharpie pen or with my cutting. All edges would be hidden beneath the chair. That was a relief, as this is a tedious project. Not too hard, but lots of repetition. (My hands are sore!)

Batting is a critical step the last chair owners skipped

I then used the fabric pieces as a guide for the batting. I wanted about an inch less than the fabric, so I could staple just the fabric and not a big blob of material. Again, a quick preliminary trace and some quick cutting sufficed.

A seat cushion has many layers... I'm hoping this onion ends up more like a parfait

Next I started stacking the pieces and grabbed my staple gun. I had 3/8" staples, which worked fine. I had to hammer some down but they were long enough to hold the bigger folds of fabric on the seat corners.

Luckily I had experience stretching canvases for painting, when I was a broke art student. The concept is the same: staple the midpoint of one side of the fabric, then the opposite side, pulling so the fabric is reasonably taut. Repeat on the remaining 2 sides. Inspect your work - is anything askew? If so, rip out the staples and try again. If not, continue by adding another staple on opposing sides again. Doing this piecemeal ensures that you do not yank the fabric too far to one side, which could cause buckling or a cockeyed pattern - or worse yet, you might find you did not leave enough fabric to cover the last side.

Stapling alternating sides is key

The hardest part of the stapling was squeezing the staple gun's trigger. I'm not a tiny person and I am strong, but my hands took a beating and are currently throbbing a bit. If you have a helper, you can use both of your hands to squeeze - but the person holding the fabric needs to be very trusting when you come near!

Corners have way too much bulk and need to be trimmed

After the first chair or two, I got a sense for how much fabric I could remove on the corners so they would fold over neatly. Or neatly enough - corners are tough. The fabric needs to be pulled, tucked and stapled simultaneously. Of course, any failed attempts can be easily re-tried.

When all the stapling is done, the underside may not be perfect but it'll be hidden

It was so satisfying to see something that looked like real cushion emerge.

With new foam and batting, this cushion is much more robust than before

Next I put this cushion face down on the dining room table and flipped the chair over on top of it. I wanted to finish one chair completely before moving on to the others.

I suddenly wondered how to screw the cushion back on. Will the screws line up? Do I screw them right through the fabric? Not having a better idea, I tried to line up the cushion to the frame, then started with the first screw. It went right in, through the fabric and grabbed. This was actually the easiest step. Finding a replacement for a missing screw wasn't fun, but I found something workable.

Last step was to scotchgaurd the fabric, a must for people with kids or pets. I hauled all 6 chairs outside and sprayed them down, then left them for awhile.

Now that the chairs are back in I can finally see how they look in action, around the table.

Love the chairs... now I've got to do something about the worn finish on our table

Costs:
$50 for roll of foam
$15 for batting
Fabric might have been $8/yard on sale? (It's been a long time).

Time to complete: approximately 3 hours