Upholstery 101

Does the idea of upholstering a piece of furniture scare you to death?  It really is not that scary and I will show you how and hopefully ease your fears enough to give you the confidence needed to try your hand at a project like this!

During one of my junking weekends I picked up these super UGLY chairs!

You can read more about that adventure in this post  Junk Treasures, Making Crap Craptastic.  The red and green plaid upholstery and chair skirt covered in cat hair had to go.

TOOLS NEEDED: (un-upholstery process)
Staple puller (for upholstery staples)
Hammer
Needle nose pliers
Scissors
Gloves – unless you like red, blistered hands
Sharpie

Let me start by telling you, the worst part of any re-upholstery project is the prep.  I never did find a brand name on these chairs, but let me tell you, they are WELL BUILT and full of staples!!!  The manufacturer had NO intentions of this upholstery ever being removed.

This picture represents the amount of staples I pulled from the seat of ONE chair.  Now take this picture x 1000 (not even exaggerating!!!).  THERE WERE MILLIONS OF STAPLES TO BE PULLED!!!  Oh my aching hands!!!

Removing Upholstery

Step 1: I carefully removed a million and one staples from each chair (serious!)  When removing the staples, you want to be careful not to destroy the upholstery you are removing, you will use it as a pattern for your new upholstery.   My chairs had skirts, upholstered legs and bows on the back (which I didn’t keep) so I didn’t have to be so gentle with these areas.Step 2: Using your sharpie, mark each piece of upholstery as you remove it with an identifier – I marked mine Seat, Front Back and Back and included arrows that point to the top or back of chair.  (see below – it’s hard to see my sharpie markings, so I added text to the picture so you ……….um, get the picture!)Step 3: Determine how much upholstery you need, I used 2 yards per chair.   If you need to, take your patterns with to determine the correct amount.  Keep an eye out for sales on upholstery fabric – it can get expensive.  I bought mine at Hobby Lobby and used their 40% off coupon!
NOTE: If you want to prevent yourself from a headache, choose a fabric without a pattern!!  Patterned fabrics will require more fabric and are somewhat of a pain to line up.  If you use a patterned fabric and don’t line it up, your project will look unprofessional!  

This is the fabric I chose along with the nail heads I will be adding.  What do you think?

Step 4: Cutting the upholstery – Stop here!!!  I will show you some tips and tricks in the next post.

Since I am going to expose the legs of my chairs that were previously covered,  I need to do some repairs – hopefully your project won’t require this step!  While I do that I need your help!!!  Here is a picture of my table and current chairs (you can read all about the table make over here) – the new chairs will replace the two end chairs…………….what color do I Paint or Stain the legs???
I need your vote, so leave me a comment below:
A – Stain them the same color as the table top and Kitchen cabinets?
 – or –
B – Paint them the same color as the remaining chair legs, table base and trim in the house?