In today’s American society, there is a need for filling our desires immediately. If we need a bed frame, we order it online or go to the store and pick it up the next day. If we need a new set of curtains, we run down to Target and pick it up within the hour. We buy things that don’t have a long life expectancy from Ikea…we just need it to get us through to our next apartment.
This has not always been the case. Furniture pieces were built by a generation to last generations. The pieces were inherited in the family. People saved for YEARS for new furniture pieces. Furniture was made of of rich mahogany, oak or pine. Now we use compost woods, laminated woods and renewable woods that don’t give off that wonderful deep wood smell when polished. These new materials make furniture cheaper to buy and even easier to throw away.
This post is dedicated to furniture of the past and hopefully will be a helpful aid in helping you reconsider those P.O.S. pieces from ikea in favor of some older pieces from a relative or from the local salvation army that just need a little TLC.
This weekend I went to le boyfriend’s family’s house and reupholstered some dining room chairs that have seen a lot of wear and tear over the years. I offered to redo the chairs as their Christmas gift this year. I like the idea of giving something that will last a long time instead of something that will be replaced by the latest and greatest a few years later.
Before
After
Things you’ll need:
- A chair with removable seat
- screwdriver (flat or phillips head depending on the chair screws)
- need nose pliers
- Staple gun and staples
- fabric
- batting or foam
- scissors
- Wood polish and rag (optional)
The Step by Step:
1) Normally a chair with a removable seat is fastened to the frame with 4 metal screws. These screws are usually on the underside of the chair. As you can see from the chair below, there are 4 screw holes (one in each corner of the chair). Flip your chair and unscrew the seat (save the screws, you’ll reuse them).
2) There will be a dis-assembly step before you can add fabric to your chair. As you can see below, you will have to remove some of the old staples with a screwdriver and needle nose pliers. I removed all the staples that were holding on this black underside fabric that hid all the rough edges. If you remove staples neatly, you can reuse this fabric at the end.
3) Decide your method of padding. Some seats have springs and some some have padded cushions. Decide if your old padding is in good condition to reuse, if you need to add more padding, or if you just need to start over. My seat had a spring pad filled with horse hair. I decided to add a double layer of batting to the entire seat, and an additional 2 layers to areas that had been rubbed clear of padding. I cut this padding with a 1″ clearance around the seat. If you are using a foam pad, cut it to the size of the seat as it will increase in size when compressed.
4). Find the grain of your fabric ( if it has one). Lay the padding, and the chair top of the fabric with the grain running from the back of your seat to the front. Cut enough of the fabric that you can pull fabric over the edge of the chair to staple. Do this with your padding between the chair and the fabric.
5) Staple! Your first and second staple are the most important staples. They set your fabric direction and tension. My first staple is always the center of the edge at the back side of the chair. Tighten the fabric across the chair. Check how that tension looks on the other side of the chair and that the fabric grain is ruining straight from the back of the chair to the front. My second staple is the center of the front edge of the chair. Then pull the fabric tight to the edge at the side of the seat. Flip your seat to make sure your tightening doesn’t pull the length of the grain off center. Then add your second staple to that edge. Repeat this for the other side. Then work your way back and forth on opposing sides pulling (working from the staple outwards), checking and stapling.
Most chairs seats aren’t square. So your fabric will gather in some areas when its being pulled flat. You will see this in the picture below. If you work in tighter distances from the previous staple your gathers will be less noticeable when the chair is assembled. You can cut any excess overhang if it gets in the way…or if you just want to remove it at the end of the project.
6) Using that under fabric saved from step 2, or new solid colored fabric, staple around the edge to hide the under carriage of the chair and the edges of your chair fabric. In the end, you’ll want something that looks similar to the above picture from step 2.
7) Rescrew the seat to the chair frame using the screws you saved from step 1 and the pre-existing holes in the chair seat frame. And Voila! Finished chair! Shine ‘er up and you are ready for a dinner party!
This is another fun chair I did which was a lot more work and a bit more intricate but the same basic principles applied to chair seats and chair arms!
