Reupholstering an Easy Chair

The husband decided he needed a captains chair. I did some shopping on a local website where people sell their property. But everything I found was gross, old and expensive. Until I saw that the Marriott was selling its time share furniture from a ski resort. The fabric was a disaster but it was covering a sturdy high quality chair and ottoman that had minimal use.

Step one: Remove all of the existing fabric. This was an epic job. It took two days of pliers and a screw driver to rip all the staples out. I ripped the fabric here and than but or the most part tried to keep it as intact as possible. After some epic vacuuming I had a clean pallet and fabric to use as pattern pieces.

I laid out my new fabric face down and flat. I still needed to remove all the seams in the fabric with my seam ripper so the pieces would lay flat too. I put a pin anywhere I removed a seam on both pieces so I wouldn't forget to sew it back. Then I laid out the pattern pieces right side down on the new fabric, pinned and cut. Don't forget to note the seams on the new fabric.

The first step was to sew the pieces back together. Once I had the seams intact I started laying the pieces over the chair in their proper place. 

Next step was to attach the fabric to the chair. I got out my air compressor, nail gun and staple gun. I mixed staples and nails pulling the fabric tight. I stapled it back together in the reverse order that I was able to pull it off in. Started with the front of the back rest, moved to the base of the chair, arm rests and then sides. The sides had cardboard in them when I took it apart so I kept those pieces to help give straight lines.

Next step was to covered and enclose the back. I cut long narrow pieces of cardboard to match the edges of the back. Using my hot glue gun I glued the card board to all the edges on the wrong side of the fabric. I folded the fabric over to create a crisp edge.

I took the old cardboard pieces that I had ripped off and traced them into new cardboard from an old shoe box and cut. I nailed mini nails into the cardboard and hot glued the fabric to the cardboard covering the nail heads. I trimmed the extra fabric to make the cardboard lay flat and nailed it in place over the fabric. 

Now the ottoman will be a walk in the park!