The Chair Project

About a year ago I found this wonderful vintage chair at an antique shop. It is dated back to 1969, but I was getting a little sick of the print on the fabric, so I decided that I would reupholster it. Here is how it went...

After deciding to take upon this task, I went to Joann's and got some fabric in a color that I liked! I ended up getting 3 yards of some pretty cheap turquoise fabric, which I don't really recommend as now I may change it for some other better quality fabric in the future. I pulled out my staple gun and got my scissors, I also used fabric glue with this project and a monkey wrench for the buttons. (I would have used a hammer for that part, but alas I could not find one!) 

I then checked out what I was working with (this is also how I discovered how old this thing was!) Instead of taking off all of the fabric, I decided that I would leave it on just in case something went terribly wrong, or if I decided that I wanted the old print back. 

I then started pinning. I decided to do the back first and I stapled the fabric in a line at the bottom of the chair. As I pinned, I gradually cut off the excess fabric to provide a perfect fit. 

You'll probably need A LOT of pins... I then sewed where I had placed all of the pins.  I found that a curved needle worked best! 

I then did the seat. I stapled the bottom first again, and cut off the excess. Using a butter knife I simply tucked the fabric down as deep as I possibly could into the crack. 

I then did the back (which took the longest!) I had to pullout the buttons first so I could tuft the new fabric. Luckily these buttons had metal ends instead of actually being tufted with string so they were really easy to stick into the new fabric. I then did the smaller parts of the chair, by pinning and sewing. 

Anddd.... Voila! A turquoise chair! It is not exactly complete quite yet though. I will be putting a nice cording around the edges and might use studs to make it look fancy! I'll post photos when I do that part of it later on.