Recovering Chairs

This isn't the first time I have recovered my dining chairs but since we have lived in our current house, I've wanted to re-decorate everything. At our last place I went with a royal blue and kelly green theme, going for a fun, young look. It was a huge place, great for parties and the funky, bright colors worked well. Now that my boyfriend and I have our own place, I want to make it our home. Of course we've lived here for a year and a half now, and I am just getting to all these decorating projects!

I even bought this fabric months ago, with the intention of recovering the chairs and making new pillows for the couches.

Finally! The chairs are done and it was so easy.

First, I flipped the chairs over and unscrewed the seat. Only four screws and it's off.

Then I pulled out the old staples from the last time I covered the chairs.

You can see why they need to be covered in the first place, the original upholstery is pretty darn ugly. We bought the 7 piece dining set from CORT furniture. They are a rental company but they also have show rooms where they sell used furniture. I would totally recommend checking them out if you're in the market for some new furniture, the whole set, table and 6 chairs was only $400 bucks! Plus, it is in great condition, a few scratches and dents but nothing compared to used furniture you'd find in a thrift store.

With this particular pattern fabric, It was important to center the pattern on the seat. I laid the fabric over the cushion before trimming it to size, making sure the pattern was centered.

 Once cut, I flipped the cushion over, making sure to keep the fabric in place and stapled around the edge of the seat to secure. To keep the fabric centered, put one staple on each of the four edges of the seat, pulling taut each time, then staple the rest. Here you can see my corners, neatly folded.

 It is amazing what a difference changing the fabric on the chairs makes. While I liked the old pattern for our old place, I think this new fabric is a little more mature and pulled together. The bold pattern still keeps it a little funky ;)