Blissful 55: Reupholstered Dining Room Chairs

Want to know the quickest way to give your dining room chairs an update? Reupholster them! It’s easy, quick, and relatively cheap depending on which fabric you choose.
My older chair covers were cute but the fabric was thinning and had started turning from white to dingy yellow so it was time for an update.

The first step is to remove the seat from the rest of the chair. I used an electric drill and unscrewed the seats from the base.

Once the seat is removed from the base, it’s time to take out all the previous staples holding the cover in place. I found that a flathead screwdriver worked best for me.

I had previously covered over these chairs so I was back to the original cover. If you want to take off the original cover, than take off the backing that makes it all nice and neat (keep it, don’t get rid of it!) and take off the cover completely. Until I get a dining room set that I’m in love with (I’ve been on the hunt for 2+ years), I’ll just cover over the original. My thought is this, I don’t care if the underneath looks pretty because no one is going to be looking at it and quite frankly, if someone turns my chairs over to check my work, I’ll be slapping them upside the head.

Here is a great tip for you…when removing the staples, either put them in a container or in the trash right away…whatever you do…don’t leave a little pile on the table and then accidently place your hand right on top of them. It hurts.

Make sure your new fabric is ironed first.

Then lay it out flat on the table.

I found the perfect fabric at Home Fabrics. It was a light turquoise with dark turquoise and white specs. I love it!
Place the previous (or original) cover on top of your fabric so you can figure out the size needed to cut.

Cut your fabric to the size needed, lay it flat (upside down) and place the seat (also upside down) on top of the fabric. If you have a pattern, make sure the lines are straight. I put a pin at the front and back so I could flip it over to make sure my pattern looked how I wanted it to.

Once you have that all straight, take your staple gun and put your back into it, or boobs…I found that worked better for me :) Place 1 staple in the middle of the top and bottom.

Now place a staple in the middle on both of the sides.

I then placed 2 more staples on the top and bottom between the center one and the corners.
Now comes the hardest part….the corners! There are different ways to do the corners and each provides a different look so play around with it. I pleated the very middle and worked my way outward. Once I gathered the fabric how I wanted, I placed multiple staples in it to make sure it was secure.