I found this chair at a local estate sale. Saturdays are usually half price days and this was no exception. We were about to check out when I saw this chair tucked under a desk. I saw the potential it had. I couldn't figured out exactly what I wanted to do with it until one day I was cleaning up my fabric stash and found the perfect fabric! You know the excitement you get when you can see the amazing picture in your head of what it could look like. I was all giddy inside!
First, I unscrewed the cushion from the chair and got to work taking out all of the staples. Make sure and put the screws in a safe place. Keep the finished covering on the bottom. We will use it later.
To make this job easier, I used a screwdriver to get under the staples and would pull them out with pliers.
Next, take the cushion, scissors, and the fabric and lay out the fabric.
Place the cushion on top of the fabric and cut around it. Pull the fabric up the side of the cushion so that you can figure out how much allowance to leave. It's always better to have to much than not enough.
Once it's all cut out, if your fabric is anything like mine, you will need to iron it. You are probably thinking that you can skip this part....ironing stinks....blah, blah, blah. Trust me. It will look ten times better if you iron it.
Now that your fabric is all ironed, lay it out onto the floor and place your cushion on top. Since I am in my garage, I laid out a sheet first so that my fabric wouldn't get dirty. And p.s. I hope you like my beautiful blue toes, because you will get to see them a lot.
To get started staple the front and back. Pull just a tad. You don't want the fabric to be too tight or too lose.
Now comes the corner. Staple the end...
And where there is an inside corner pull the fabric up into the corner and staple. Flip it over several times to be sure you like the way the inside corner looks.
Once the inside corner is pulled and stapled the way you like it, slightly pleat the outside corner and staple. I only used two pleats.
Now it's time to finish stapling around the rest of the cushion. Slightly pull and staple. Remember not too tight, not too lose.
Around the back of the cushion, where it curves, you will need to pleat the fabric slightly. Then go to town stapling around the edges.
Once you are done stapling cut the extra fabric and staple some more if you see fit.
Remember that piece I told you to keep, well now you can reuse it and staple it back down. I just followed the old staple marks and only stapled in those spots.
And now you have a beautiful new recovered cushion!
To redo the chair, I lightly sanded it down with my new palm sander I got for Christmas.
I really wanted to do this project right so I used a primer from the local hardware store. I actually like the color but I still need to paint it a lovely glossy black.
I let the primer completely dry overnight and started painting the chair the next morning. It took two coats to paint the chair. Gloss spray paint needs to be applied in light coats. If you spray to much on, it will run so keep it light. If it does happen to run, use a paper towel and lightly wipe the run in the direction of the wood grain. Then, when you go to apply your second coat it will cover the paint that you lightly took away.
And after a few hours of drying time and screwing the cushion back on, I now have a finished chair!
This one is listed for sale. Check out our Facebook page to see pricing!
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