I changed my mind on my DIY project for January. Why? Because grout is boring and I didn’t feel like doing it. Instead, I chose something that would have a big impact on my home and bring in more color, which I love. I recovered my sad, stained padded dining chairs with colorful cloth I bought online ages ago. I know this is a very easy project, but I put it off a long time, I had never done this before, and I actually had to google some things to get it done (like how to load the staple gun…)
This is the before picture. Lots of food and drink stains. I’m willing to be the one in the middle is red wine. Anyway, this is 4 years of use and hey, they are WHITE seat covers. What do you expect, people?!
The steps to reupholstering a chair are simple:
1. remove the covered pad from the base of the chair.
This is the underside of the IKEA dining chair. All you have to do to remove it is unscrew those 4 screws.
2. Remove the current cover from the seat and measure it.
Make sure to measure both the narrow and wide ends of the chair cover. Look at those cute handmade socks that made it into the photo!
3. If your fabric is printed, find a way to get pleasing parts of the print oriented on your chair and mark the fabric with pencil on the back. I added 2 inches on each side (4 inches per direction) to ensure that there was plenty of overlap. Then cut out each cover. Before I cut the other three, I made sure the first one fit my seat on all sides.
This is the gorgeous, pre-ironed fabric. LOVE those colors!
4. Iron the fabric. I hate to iron too, but I would hate looking at the same stupid wrinkles for years more than ironing. The fabric I used is a thick upholstery fabric so I used a bunch of steam to get the wrinkles out.
5. Wrap the ironed fabric over the seat and ensure placement is correct. Staple it down, pulling really tight on the fabric to keep it taut.
Much nicer finished project when I drink the LaCroix than wine. Also, I kept all my fingers.
6. Screw the seat back onto the chair base and admire your beautiful work.
All four chairs took a total of about 2 hours to complete. Not too shabby.