Monday, May 23, 2011

Recovering Kitchen Chairs

I debated recovering our kitchen chairs for a while... On one hand, I loved that the upholstery appeared to be original to the 1970s Henredon chairs (snagged for a major deal at Sleepy Poet about two years ago).  On the other hand, they were really starting to show their age.

The construction zone that was our house for 5 months, during the sunroom addition, answered the question for me.  All of the dust certainly did no favors for the wear & tear of the chairs... So recovering was a go!

I hit up Mary Jo's (one of my favorite weekend spots) and found this perfect-shade-of-gray linen fabric for the chairs.


I also picked up some batting to fill out the seats.  The original plan was to remove the entire old fabric, add batting, and recover.  A few too many original staples sent me the easy way out...

We unscrewed the base of the seat from the frame, cut pieces of batting to the same size as the seat, and cut the fabric a few extra inches wider than the seat (allowing for enough extra fabric to staple down).

Then we laid the batting over the top of each seat, covered with the fabric, and stapled to the bottom with a staple gun (with one of us pulling the fabric tightly and the other stapling down).  We stapled once around the seat, then went back and stapled even closer together.

For the corners, we folded the edges (like wrapping a present) so that the front would appear flat and the only folded edge would be off to the side.


Then we cut away any excess fabric and re-attached the seats.  For a refreshed final result...























It was so much easier than I thought!  One Friday night (I know, we're so fun) and the project was done!  Have you ever done a DIY reupholstery project?  How did it turn out?

3 comments:

  1. I love DIY projects! The perfectionist in me is sometimes intimidated by the DIY aspect for things I've never done before, but I appreciate your blog posts and the detailed step-by-step you provide. You have such an eye for creative detail! Thank you for sharing!

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  2. Those look terrific! There are so many beautiful tings in the world that we throw away—I love that you're extending their lives with a simple, timeless update.

    I'm in the market for a new-to-me Mid Century Modern sofa and, though the reupholstery will probably be way over my head, I'm looking forward to seeing if I can make my own pillows to dress it up and and some personality.

    Also, Sleepy Poet is one of my favorite spots. We may have to take a trip sometime!

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  3. What a great idea! I have antique chairs with beautiful fabric, but they are starting to look really worn. Speaking of chairs - do you happen to know any good restoration places? I need to have the arm of an antique wooden chair fixed. Thanks for all the tips!

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