Get Your Drill & Fabric and Recover Dining Room Chair

$20 To Recover Dining Room Chairs? Challenge Accepted!

I am frugal and have already spent so much on Christmas. Don’t even get me started whining about a plumber’s bill for almost $600. Yes, I took a shower about a week ago and came downstairs to pour a cup of coffee and see all this water across the counter top! My kitchen ceiling was raining…….I knew my shower was right above there. <sigh> 

Called my daughter to ask who the plumber was she had used a short time ago, called him and they were able to come out right way. ( It was the shower drain trap. Replaced. Not too much water damage at all. We dodged the mold bullet by taking care of it quickly. We will think about repairing that ceiling drywall.)

But I had wanted to recover my dining room chairs. These chairs have fabric on the seat only and some of them are stained. I have cleaned all eight of them many times and they just get stained again. Not pointing any fingers here….but I have some suspects.

Need to recover dining room chair

(Not really just Jacob. I just had to post this cute photo of him. He’s so grown up now. Indulge me!)

I have had this dining room set for about twelve years and I really like it. It is large and that’s what we had looked for, a big one so that the whole family could sit around. High chairs for the babies could move into a slot and then when the little ones are bigger, booster seats work.

But now we have Jacob all grown. He’s fifteen now and I am still waiting on some more grandchildren but nothing on the horizon yet.

Meanwhile the seats are a bit stained and need replaced but I am not ready to pay $25 or more a yard for eight chairs. Especially if I mess it up and have to start over. If I have it done, it could cost $80-100 per chair, so I needed a cheaper solution. And I wanted it NOW!  ( See more money saving and budgeting ideas.)

One of the old chairs - not as stained as some others.

I had visited the fabric stores to see the fabrics available and I could not make up my mind. I don’t want white or cream like I had because it shows the stains too easily. But I cannot decide on a print. Too busy. What do I do? What if I don’t like it and I spend several hundred dollars? Rip it all off?

Be sure to check out my Amazon shop. This includes a lot of the items I use for my projects. This is an affiliate link and I could earn a commission if you should make a purchase. See the Shop Page here. https://www.amazon.com/shop/kimsgardens

Fabric for the Process – I Found It!

Out shopping one afternoon for Christmas village things ( like I told you with these villages, there is always something else you want or need), I was checking out the tablecloths and wondering if I should try a different color this year as my under-layer on my village.  See my village on this post. Suddenly I realized I was looking at possible chair fabric!

Why not use a damask tablecloth? It would give me a similar look. I checked the measurements on those available and the longest was 60″ by 144″. Price $19.99 seriously. $5 per yard for 60″ fabric !  I knew that I needed 30″ by 28″ for each seat which gave me room for a tuck/hem. 

I knew I wanted a soft fabric that would be easy to work around the edges and fold smoothly. Something bulky would just not work. Sold!

Neutral color is better

As for the color, I did not want white or cream. Red was there but I didn’t care for it. So my option in the 144″ size was for a pale teal color. Works for me! My walls are light gray and I decorate in black and white other than my plants and wood furniture. So this was it!  And it was less than $20.

At that price, if I hated it later, I could just ditch it all and start over after the holidays. But I would have clean chairs for my Holiday dinners and parties.

First of all, I have changed the fabric on a wood chair before. I have recovered desk chairs and side chairs. I am not saying I have re-upholstered any chairs. I know my limitations. All I have done is to cover the old chair seat (when it is in good condition) with new fabric. 

For my project on these chairs, I was only going to cover the existing chair pads leaving them intact to be re-done later with a nicer fabric.

image of dining chairs recovered with teal fabric

How to Recover Dining Chair Seats

Most wooden chairs like mine have an attached “upholstered seat cushion” which can be removed by taking out the screws that hold it on the frame.  You’ll need a battery-powered drill with a bit that is long enough to go into these holes where the screw is located. There were 7 screws holding each seat to the chair frame and we removed these. ( My husband was in charge and I was the helper.)

Steps to recover dining chair

Another item needed is a staple gun. My Inspector Gadget husband of course had an electric one so the work went quickly. There needs to be a lot of staples so the electric one will be best. Here is an affiliate link to his model. Arrow Fastener 9100K PowerShot Pro Electric Staple and Nail Gun. Be sure to have a supply of staples since it does take a lot i.e. perhaps 25-35 or so per chair.  We used Arrow Fastener 206 Genuine T20 3/8-Inch Staples, 1,000-Pack.

You just turn the chair over, pop all screws out, remove the seat, cover the seat with new cloth, and reattach in the same holes as they were removed. It is really easy. Each chair takes about 10-15 minutes

Try to prevent your helper or husband from trying to break an imagined record for getting a seat done in “record time.”  I guarantee that will get on your nerves really fast. Have a bottle of wine nearby and refill your glass when needed.

Hints to recover a dining chair or any chair.

Be sure to fold the fabric under as you pull and staple the edges. We worked alternating opposite sides for smoothness. I liked doing the front then the back, progressing into each side – left then right. Each of the sides staples smoothly, but at the corners you need to work around the edges, folding and tucking so that you get the smoothest edges possible.

That is the reason I chose a light fabric like this polyester because I just don’t have the talent or equipment to do a heavier damask they were upholstered in currently.

It turned out really well!

So there you have it.  It took about 2 hours for the work. We already had the tools and staples, so if you would like to try something like this, it may be an extra expense to get that Staple gun. Or perhaps you could borrow/rent one. A box of staples is less than $5. When you need something, just use some ingenuity and figure out how you can do it and save a lot of money! 

Yes, I know this fabric is not going to last forever, but it can last until my budget recovers from Christmas and from that plumbing mishap.

Then I will be back trying to choose fabric again. Oh Lord, help me!

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Update: Remember that the original manufacturer or designer used a white/cream for a reason. It blends with anything. I am so sick of that color of blue-green. I will be changing this out shortly. I lived with it for the past year, but I want my white back! Soon!

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Update 2018 again:  I have re-upholstered the chairs with regular upholstery fabric. I chose a cream with black accents and I love it. Waited for a sale at Hobby Lobby and it wasn’t horribly expensive at all. Loving it! What do you think? Different house and dining room.

Dining chairs redone with upholstery fabric

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

4 Comments

  1. Your chairs turned out awesome Kim! It’s nice when you are able to give things a new look and especially on a budget! Hope your shower working better now!

    Thank you so much for sharing over at Waste Not Wednesday 🙂

    1. Thanks, I really like them and it was nice to save money. I will re-do them later on when I can find a fabric that pleases me. And the shower is all fixed, ceiling repaired. It seems there’s always something.

  2. That’s such a great idea for fabric, especially if I can get lucky at a thrift store too! Another one you can use which may resist stains is those painters canvases. You can buy a twelve footer for maybe ten bucks? Another great option if you want to send the rest of your budget on a couple of a couple cans of stain repellant, so you don’t have to keep recovering them.

    Have a great day!

    1. Thanks, this has worked pretty well. It won’t last forever, but I will probably change colors in the summer. It was easy to do and the stain protection is a great idea.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.