How to Reupholster a Side Chair

We recently purchased a dining room table and we're very excited that we no longer have to eat dinner on the sofa :)

We found our set on craigslist and knew it would be perfect for our space. Like most of the other furniture we own, it is gently used and we figure, if we can reuse something....why not?!

We did need to recover the chair seats, since the original fabric was stained and looking pretty yucky. 

We began by unscrewing the chair seats from the frames. Tom then spent a few hours removing all the staples holding the original fabric in place (there were about 75 staples/chair!). The chair shown below also had a crack in the right back support, so after filling it with a some wood glue, we clamped it tight and let it cure for 24 hours before removing the clamp. Now it's good as new and you can hardly tell where the crack was.

Here's a chair with the seat taken apart. The foam was in good shape so we opted to use the original. You could also replace the foam if it was too worn/stained/smelly etc.

Each chair seat had a black fabric on the bottom of the seat and those pieces were in good shape too.

Since I'm still in the process of choosing fabric for our living room/dining room/entry way(it's one big room and I would like it to all flow together), I picked up a canvas drop cloth at the hard ware store for $10 to use as new fabric to recover the chair seats. It's a great color in our space, and it will give me some time to continue looking for fabric without rushing.

After cutting out a piece of drop cloth for each chair seat (I just laid the seats on top of the fabric and cut out a square a few inches larger than the seat itself), I used my staple gun to attach the fabric to the chair seats. Starting in the middle of the top edge of each seat, I stapled the middle of each side before continuing to staple toward the corners. This allowed me to make sure the fabric was smooth and taught on the front of each chair seat and adjust as necessary. 

I then tucked the corners in, military style (just like the sheet on a bed) And replaced the black fabric that came with the chairs. This gave the seats a more finished look (although I don't think anyone would ever know if I skipped this step since it's on the bottom :)

Here's the final product! I'm really happy with how they came out and I'm so happy to be rid of the stained fabric they came with. They look fresh and clean and now I can take my time finding fabric for the rest of the room, since these chairs will match anything!