Sewplicity: TUTORIAL: Reupholster a Dining Room Chair

I live in an old house and much of my furniture fits the style and feel of the house. My husband and I inherited our dining room set from his parents and we absolutely love it. The only problem is having a 5yr old and a 2 yr old have taken their toll on the chairs. Spills, feet, knees, crayons, etc have stained the fabric on the seats. Thankfully, reupholstering a dining room chair is VERY simple. You don't need to sew, you don't need to be crafty.....all you need is some heavy duty fabric and a few tools:

Scissors.....Screwdriver.....Staple gun, and maybe a pair of pliers.

Here is the chair BEFORE:

Here is the chair AFTER:

Much better! So here is how to do it.....

I used some upholstery fabric which I purchased on sale. I bought about 3 yards (remember, home decor fabric comes about 54" wide) and this was more than enough to cover the seat of 5 chairs.

First, turn your chair over and remove the screws that hold the seat to the frame:

Next, lay the seat on top of the new fabric and cut the fabric a few inches larger than the seat (make sure you leave enough to wrap around the bottom and cover about 1-2". You can always trim extra fabric later.

If the chair doesn't have too many reupholstered layers, you can put the new fabric right over the old, but if there are several layers you will want to remove the old fabric first - at that point you may even want to replace the batting, which you would do using the same technique.
I didn't need to pull the old fabric off, so I will just be putting the new fabric right over what was already there.

Starting at the bottom, pull the fabric up and around the seat and staple in place folding the raw edge under to prevent fraying

You will want to put a staple every inch or so...

Repeat this on the opposite side of the seat making sure the fabric is taut as you staple

Leave about an inch of loose fabric when you get to the corners

Repeat this for the other two sides

Once all the sides are secure, you can move on to the corners

Trim the top of the excess corner fabric so there is only about 1.5" standing

Pull the center of the standing fabric in towards the center of the chair

Flatten the flap while tucking the sides under. You will want to trim any bulk fabric away before you staple this flap in place so the seat fits properly in the frame. Once you finagle it a bit, staple it in place making sure not to block the hole for the screw