I was recently contacted by the team at Remodelaholic.com to feature a chair re upholstery that I did a WHILE ago.  I was very flattered but a little embarrassed by my former photography skills, so I asked them if I could do a quick update.  AND since I’m going through the effort, I thought I should probably share it here too.  So if you missed it back then, here it is again! 😉

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This the chair I started with…Keep in mind, I had never done this before and figured it out as I went!

I started by taking it apart.  Making sure to pay CAREFUL attention to HOW I was taking apart.

Lots of staples and clean frame later, I had this…

I sanded and painted the frame, then started putting the chair back together.  I used a cheap drop cloth to recover the piece.  There were two tricky areas on this makeover.  The first was the front bar.  I stapled the fabric down and then flipped the fabric over the staples to hide them.  The rest of the staples were hidden on the inside under the cushion.  (If you have a design on your fabric, staple it with the back side of the fabric showing.)

I didn’t take any pictures of the back but each chair will be designed differently.  I added padding to the back and carefully stapled the fabric over it.

To finish it off, I made cording to hide all the remaining staples and covered the seat cushion.  I disassembled the cushion and used the old fabric as a pattern. (You can also use a decorative trim instead of cording.)

4 Things I Learned

1.  Take notes or pictures as you take the piece apart.

2.  Try to get the staples as close outside of the fabric as possible and STRAIGHT! 🙂  This will help when you are adding trim or cording.

3.  Get a good nail gun! I used an electric nail gun and it made the job easier.

4.  Take your time…undoing staples is a waste of time and FRUSTRATING! 🙂

The chair lived in my office for a while and now is in my friends little girl’s nursery.

It’s not perfect, but I think it came out great.  Hopefully I have inspired to try something new! 🙂

~Angela