My friend Dina had some dining room chairs that were very worn. She wanted to recover them and she knew it could be done, but she didn't think she could do it. Somehow this came up in one of our conversations, so I offered to help her.
I thought she would arrive with 6 chairs, but instead she came with two bags of chair seats. Her husband had removed them for her and was excited about getting them covered. It's very easy to take them off the chairs. It's basically 4 screws. Here is the bottom corner of one my kitchen chairs where the screw is located.
This is one of Dina's chair seats.
This is the bottom of the chair seat. The fabric underneath it is the new reupholstery fabric.
You can remove the old fabric and replace the foam, or not. It's much easier not to remove the old fabric. The foam of her chair seats was fine and still firm, so we put the new fabric right over the old.
A staple gun is essential to doing this job. An electric staple gun is even better, but only when you can figure out how to insert the staples.
And we couldn't do this project without our buddy.
It's really like wrapping a present.
You can cover the bottom with kraft paper, poster board, a non-fraying fabric, or not!
It didn't take Dina long, before she was doing it herself.
Cushion #1
And they started piling up.
Don't they look beautiful?
Dina, you go girl!
Sometimes it just takes a little confidence.
Those look beautiful with the new covers. My mom used to do upholstery but it is something I could never get into.
ReplyDeleteDebbie
Muito legal este trabalho solidário e amigável.Parabéns
ReplyDeleteYeah, confidence. And if you're doing valances, in a camper, while you're living in it, lots of time and patience. Ear plugs don't hurt, either! The day before we were due to leave on our month-long excursion, I decided I'd absolutely had enough of the old ones. Talked Driver into taking down the easiest of 16 valances and brought it in to recover. Got my half yard of chosen fabric and went to town. I was originally going to remove the old fabric & piping, but after one hour had only 5 of the zillion staples removed. I decided to cover right over the old stuff too.
ReplyDeletePutting the valance back UP was even harder than taking down, however, and involved Driver, on his back, draped over the counter, the stove & the sink, and using a manual screwdriver to put them back in.
After about 4 more hours of calculation (yes, the whole idea morphed when I changed fabrics and after further discussion), we decided that it was much too complicated and expensive to do what would look good. What I had done looked ok, but drab & boring. (and, according to Driver, "cheap.")
So....we have saved the calculations, should we ever get that confidence back!! But, in the meantime, we'll just keep the marriage & camper intact, and put up with the old stuff. To its defense, the only window that showed wear was the one in the kitchen, by the stove & sink...and that was the one we recovered. I guess we're good for another 10 years!
Dina, y'all rock! Your chairs look great!
Wow, you're looking great, Cheryl! Good for you, keep it up! Love the bold fabric on Dina's chairs. My son is the chair-person around here. He repairs even the most hopeless looking and falling apart chairs.
ReplyDeleteThese look great, and not so hard to do. How handy that someone was able to lend a paw to hold that fabric in place for you!
ReplyDeleteThey turned out great, she must love them.
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