Armless Chair Recover

I love reupholstering furniture.  It reminds me of wrapping a present, and I love wrapping presents.  I decided that my first chair upholstery attempt should be an armless chair. I figured it would be a good learning project. 

I found this armless chair on craigslist:

It had a 90's hotel feel.

My wonderful husband went with me to purchase it so that he could help me load it in the car.  One thing that the craigslist photo didn’t convey was that this chair is BIG!  It takes up more floor space than I expected.  My husband lovingly named the chair “Big Bertha”, and that name has stuck.

I started off by unscrewing the back off of the chair.  I didn’t realize the chair was capable of this from the craigslist photo.  This made reupholstering it much easier.  Then I took a lot of photos of the chair.  The photos were going to help me remember how it all went together.

Then comes the part that takes some nerve: tearing apart a perfectly good chair.  I removed the fabric by prying out the staples with a flat screw driver and pliers.  The trick is to remove the fabric CAREFULLY.  The original fabric was going to be my pattern for the new fabric.  As I removed each of the pieces I labeled where they came from with a Sharpie, for example, “back of chair”.  This part of the process was pretty slow, it probably took about 4 hours to get all of the staples and fabric off the chair.

I ordered new fabric called Wood Fern by Amy Butler.  I found this chart that helped me decide how much fabric to order.  This 54” heavier weighted fabric turned out to be perfect for an accent chair like this.

I cut the new fabric to match the old.  Then I stapled it all on with my electric staple gun.  I would highly recommend an electric staple gun if you are serious about upholstery.  This was the quickest part of the whole process, it only took about an hour and half!  

I am smitten with this chair!

Ta-Da!