Recovering Chairs with Tutorial

Well here is our dining room before the new rug and new chair coverings (and before I steamed the table runner).

Here is the new rug and new chair coverings.  You saw those on Friday I think.  

Next I did the breakfast table chairs.  This is the before...

This is after.  

Ah, I honestly don't know if I'll recover chairs again any time soon after doing all 9 of these (I still have one left that has stripped screws so I can't get the cushion off).  My friend Katie encouraged me to do them but I will say, they weren't as easy as I thought.  She must just be a professional ha!  I couldn't get the staples out of the old covering so I ended up just cutting all of the fabric off.  

Here are brief steps (please take with a grain of salt because I'm not good at this stuff!):

1.  Unscrew the cushion from the chair.

2.  Take off the old fabric - you're supposed to get all the staples out but there were about 500 in each of my chairs and I would have had to pry each out.  Ain't nobody got time for that!  I just cut the fabric off.

3.  I cut all my new fabric squares at once (I used regular scissors).  Be sure you measure the cushion correctly because as you can see, mine are wider in the front than in the back.  If you have a repetitive pattern like the one above, it's easy but if you use a large pattern like my dining chairs, you may have to get a little more fabric. I got 3 yards for 6 chairs for my dining and 2.5 yards for 4 chairs for my breakfast table.   

4.  Once the old fabric is off, center the new fabric, flip it over to the back then use a staple gun and go to town.

5.  The old chairs had a backing on the back so I got some of that stuff at the fabric store and put it over the edges of the fabric.  I think this is so strings don't hang down?  I'm not sure.  Some of my chairs I forgot it, most have it on.  

6.  Screw the cushions back onto the chair and wa-la.  You have new cushions!  

7.  Another step after 5 you could take would be to add the plastic covering over top the fabric.  I did this for one of our breakfast table chairs so la baby/other children would not mess it up.  Basically it's like covering your chair a second time - just with the plastic which you can find at the fabric store.