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We’ll cover every aspect from start to finish in order to equip any beginner with the knowledge and confidence they need to reupholster dining chair seats.
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After I posted this photo of my dining room to Instagram a few weeks ago and mentioned that I reupholstered the chairs, I got a few inquiries as to how to do that. So I thought it would be worth writing a step-by-step tutorial on how to reupholster a dining chair seat!
Let’s jump right to it, shall we?
Before you can reupholster a dining chair you will need to consider your fabric! There are several factors you need to consider when choosing an upholstery fabric:
What is meant by “double rubs?”
Double rubs are the number of times a mechanical arm is moved back and forth over the fabric before the fabric fails. It’s estimated 3000 double rubs = approx. 1 year of use.
Heavy duty upholstery fabric is usually more than 12 ounces per square yard.
To determine how much fabric you will need to purchase, follow these steps:
To upholster a dining chair seat there are a few supplies you will need. I’ve described them in great detail so you know why you need them and what I recommend or don’t recommend.
Don’t attempt to use office supply (paper) scissors to cut your fabric – especially heavy upholstery fabric! You will risk getting unclean cuts and even snagging your fabric threads. I really love my 8″ dressmaker’s shears by Gingher. They have no trouble gliding right through the heaviest of upholstery fabric. Inversely, don’t ever use your sewing scissors on paper – it will dull them!
This is for removing staples or upholstery tacks when you are removing the old fabric for your chair. Even if you’re not removing old fabric, it’s a good idea to have one of these for removing mistakes when stapling! I have a simple wooden handled one from Joann Fabric, but this one I recently found looks awesome.
These are in case you need to remove broken staples or bits stuck in the wood. It happens more often than you’d think!
You’ll need a screwdriver for detaching the seat from your chair – Philipps head or flathead depending on your screws.
This is my least favorite part but very necessary! You’ll need to iron your fabric before you begin to remove any wrinkles. Trust me, it’s important!
It’s totally up to you which way you go on this. If this is the only upholstery project you will ever do, you may want to get an inexpensive spring-loaded stapler. They often have them at craft stores and on Amazon. I will say that the cheap ones from places like Joann are NOT my favorit. I find that they jam frequently. If you have many chairs to do or plan to do more upholstery, I recommend borrowing or purchasing a pneumatic stapler.
Don’t forget you’ll need an air compressor to power it! This pneumatic upholstery stapler I got from Amazon has been amazing! It has never jammed on me – even through my vintage chair project – and it comes with everything you need to get started (stapler, different sizes of staples, lubricating oil & maintenance kit). I bought a “long-nose” stapler to upholster vintage chairs that have a groove in which the fabric rests. You’ll see I’ve linked both my long-nose stapler and a crown stapler (more of a standard stapler) below.
These are typically sold in the same aisle as the spring-loaded staplers or you can purchase them online. While it depends how thick your batting & fabric are, typically anything 1/4″ to 1/2″ is more than sufficient. You don’t want something too long that’s going to split your wood or be impossible to get out if you make a mistake.
You should most definitely wear safety goggles (or similar) whenever you’re messing with staples – when removing and when stapling. Anytime you have sharp little metal bits potentially flying about you want to protect your eyes! Make sure you have goggles that you can clearly see through to be able to work safely.
You may also want to consider hearing protection if you are using an air compressor and potentially thin work gloves if you have sensitive hands and find the rubbing of scissors and pliers irritating. This is totally up to you – use your own judgement.
If you missed the part above on how to choose an upholstery fabric and how much you’ll need, scroll on up in this post! Did you know you can buy fabric on Amazon? Here’s the heavy duty fabric I used on our dining chairs.
I just use regular old batting from the quilting section of the fabric store. Batting just helps smooth everything out like the corners of the foam. You’ll need roughly the same amount as your upholstery fabric. You can purchase it at fabric stores or online here.
While I didn’t replace any foam for this tutorial (my chairs did not need it), you can reference step 3 of my vintage chair project to see how to cut foam to size. You can purchase foam at fabric stores like Joann Fabric or order it online, like this on Amazon.
These are not absolutely necessary, but they are helpful to hold fabric in place while you check placement.
For your convenience, here is a printable supplies checklist!
Now let’s reupholster a dining chair!!
You will want to work in a space that does not have small children or pets present, if possible. You may want to spread out a drop cloth or floor covering to catch any flying staples or metal shards. (It makes for easier cleanup!) If you are using an air compressor make sure it is plugged in and pressurized. Gather all your supplies and turn on your music!
Turn your chair over and loosen the screws on the underside of your seat. Set them aside in a safe place like a jar or other container.
Use your staple/tack remover and pliers to remove the existing staples or tacks. Make sure you’re wearing eye protection for this! Slide (or wedge) the staple remover under each staple and pry it up. Use your needle nose pliers to pull out any broken staples or bits. Don’t feel badly if you break staples while trying to get them out. This happens all the time!
Remove the existing fabric and batting (if you’re replacing the batting). Set it aside but don’t throw it away yet. Sometimes it’s helpful to reference the old fabric for making special cuts for corners.
Trust me, you don’t want to skip this step! I personally don’t like ironing but it’s worth it to have smooth, taught fabric for a professional look. Be sure to turn your iron to an appropriate setting for your fabric. I like to keep mine around medium – just hot enough that it produces steam but not scorching. If your fabric came with care instructions be sure to read them first.
[If you are replacing chair foam, do that part now.] Visit this tutorial to learn how to cut upholstery foam to size.
Lay your batting out and place your seat upside down on top of it (you are looking at the underside). Give yourself enough room around the edges to be able to wrap the batting and secure it to the wood frame, but not so much that you’re wasting a bunch. Cut your batting from the roll and set the roll aside. It doesn’t need to be perfectly precise.
Lay your fabric on a smooth, flat surface with the right side (printed side) down. Be sure the fabric pattern is oriented the correct way. Pick up your seat and batting (still loose) and place them on top of the fabric. Try to get it as straight as possible (don’t worry, we’ll check in a minute!).
Leave enough room around the edges that you can wrap the fabric up to the wood frame, but not so much that you’re wasting a lot of fabric. If you have a particular part of the fabric that you want centered on your seat, you may want to lay the seat right side up and place your fabric on top before turning everything over. That way you can get a better feel for pattern placement. Cut the amount of fabric you need and set the remainder aside.
Once you have everything as straight as possible, pull the fabric over the frame both at the top and bottom of your seat and place two pushpins through the fabric into the wood to temporarily hold the fabric in place.
Flip your seat over to the front side to check for placement and straightness. Make adjustments as needed.
Make sure your staples are loaded correctly in your stapler. If you are using a pneumatic stapler, be sure to check the recommended PSI (pounds per square inch) of your stapler and set your compressor accordingly. My pneumatic stapler requires a minimum PSI of 60 (needs at least that amount to function) with a maximum PSI of 100. I typically set my compressor around 70.
If this is your first time using your stapler, you may want to practice a few times in a piece of scrap wood just to get a feel for the trigger.
When stapling you want to work from the middle of the frame outward. For this tutorial the “top” of your chair will be the part furthest away from you and the “bottom” will be the part closest to you. We are working on the underside of the seat (the part you don’t see when it’s attached).
Working at the top middle of your seat, pull the fabric taught over the wood frame. You want it to be tight but don’t pull it so tight it skews the pattern. Place one staple in the middle of the wood to secure.
Go to the bottom of your frame and do the same, securing with one staple. I like to pause here and flip the seat over just to make sure everything looks right before I continue.
Note: As you are stapling, be sure not to cover up the screw holes used to attach your seat. If this happens, you can always trim out a little notch for them. No big deal, but better to avoid.
Continue pulling the fabric taught over the frame and securing with staples across both the top and bottom of your frame. Stop before you get to the corners.
Turn your seat 90 degrees and repeat the process, beginning in the top middle with one staple, then the bottom middle with one staple. Work all the way across but stop before you get to the corners.
Note: There are many ways to “do” corners. This is just one way, but I personally find it the easiest.
If your chair is all squared off on the corners and has no weird posts or notches, lucky you!
To secure the corner, trim off any excess bulky batting that may be in the way on the underside of the chair. If there is too much bulk, the chair won’t sit flat on the chair frame. Don’t trim it so short that it won’t cover the corner though! You still want it to have a nice smooth edge.
Pull the corner of the fabric straight in. This will be at a 45 degree angle to the sides of your chair. Hold it taught (or secure with one staple or a push pin).
Next fold the fabric on the side straight up as if you were continuing to secure it like you did a minute ago. Secure it with a staple.
You will next be folding the adjoining side’s fabric upward but take a moment to trim any bulky excess fabric that may be in the way. Now fold the adjoining side upward and secure with a staple or two.
Secure everything with a few more staples. Trim off any excess fabric from the underside of your dining chair. Don’t trim too close to the staples. I like to leave an inch or two.
Oh why must there be weird corners, right? I try to think of notched cutouts like several littler corners just back to back. I still pull the fabric up into the notch at a 45 degree angle, fold it upward at the sides, and secure, but I have to do that twice. It’s easier to see in the YouTube video above. I couldn’t possibly address every type of corner and chair situation in this tutorial, but quite honestly sometimes you just have to play around with folds until it looks right. Do be cautious making any cuts or slits to your fabric, as you don’t want them to show when your chair is reattached!
Use your screwdriver and screws to reattach your seat to the frame. If you can’t access the holes due to fabric being in the way, you can carefully cut little notches to expose the screw holes.
Yay! How exciting! You just reupholstered a dining chair seat!
It is entirely possible to just skip the part about removing the old fabric and batting and to put new fabric right on top. This may be a good option for you if:
Here are some occasions on which this would NOT work:
I once reupholstered a pair of dining chairs that had FIVE layers of fabric on them! Yes, five! I could literally see the decades going by as I peeled away each layer – the 2000s, the 90s, 80s, 60s, and most likely the 40s! It was fascinating to say the least.
Attaching new fabric over existing fabric is exactly what I did for my vintage desk chair (which is actually a dining chair). I explain my decision in the video.
I hope this has been a useful and informative tutorial and that you now feel confident to reupholster a dining chair!
If you have any questions on how to reupholster a dining chair, please feel free to drop a comment below or message me on social media and I will do my best to answer it for you.
If you found this tutorial helpful, please be sure to save it for later or send it to a friend who would enjoy it!
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Thanks for reading!
Blessings,
Melissa
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This tutorial is all about how to reupholster dining chairs with fabric on the seat and back.
Often, pieces of furniture like this can look a bit daunting to upcycle. However, they don’t have to be.
Upholstering dining room chairs can be an easy and cost-effective way to breathe new life into special pieces of furniture that you want to keep in the family.
Charlie Miller, one of our regular contributors, will walk us through exactly how to recover dining chairs with her detailed step-by-step instructions.
We also have printable instructions if you want to have a hard copy on hand—you can find them at the bottom of this post.
I’ll hand over to Charlie now, I hope you enjoy this guide!
I inherited a number of antique furniture pieces from my Grandparents.
I have had this formal looking dining room chair – is it maybe called a Carver’s Chair? – for years now.
Photo: Charlie MillerI’ve always intended to re-cover and re-upholster it but it’s taken me a while to get around to it. This was the week!
The first thing I did in my quest to reupholster my dining chair was to remove the old fabric by prying out the nails and staples.
I have a good staple puller but it still took me some time as they’d been in there awhile!
Photo: Charlie MillerI followed the advice in another upholstery tutorial on this site that says it is best practice to save the old fabric as you take it off so you can use it as a pattern piece for your chair.
Photo: Charlie MillerYou don’t need to worry about the amount of fabric you need!
If you think about it, somebody ages and ages ago already did the measuring and calculating of how much fabric you’ll need, and how to cut out the corners – so it makes sense to just trace the old piece of fabric when cutting your new fabric!
Photo: Charlie MillerI also removed the old padding at this point.
When I stripped the fabric off of the armrests of this old chair I discovered that there were wooden blocks attached to the arms of this chair that seem to have been added after it was made.
They were probably added the last time it was recovered in the 1950s – most likely by my Grandfather!
Photo: Charlie MillerThe previous fabric on the armrests was well worn on the corners from these wood pieces so I decided to sand down the corners of these sharp rectangular blocks of wood with 60 Grit sandpaper.
I knew before I started this project that I wanted some additional cushioning on the armrests as they always felt a bit hard to me – that will have been that hard wooden block underneath!
I did staple on some new padding, but it still didn’t seem ‘cushy’ enough, so I added some old (but freshly washed!) socks.
You could use new foam if you want the arms to be even softer.
Photo: Charlie MillerI cut the socks into rectangular pieces that fit around the wooden blocks. Turns out they were just the right size for what I needed!
Photo: Charlie MillerI put another layer of cotton padding on top of the socks.
For the chair and seat back I went ahead and removed the old padding and replaced it with new cotton padding. I went as thick as I felt I could go with it and ended up adding a couple of layers.
I stapled it in place following the existing staple line for the old seat padding.
When all the padding was secured in place, I cut off the excess padding around the edges with an exacto knife (a craft knife in the UK).
I chose a bold blue and white art deco fabric. My apartment is mostly greys, teals, and blues, so it fits in well.
Photo: Charlie MillerI’m based in Vancouver, Canada and I ordered this fabric from Zazzle online.
You can buy the fabric in various weights. I went for Poplin which probably was a touch too thin. If I was doing it again I would switch my fabric choice and go for combed cotton blends or linen.
There are similar Art Deco fabrics available on Etsy here too. If you aren’t sure what type of upholstery fabric to go for you can also check out this guide that helps you choose which upholstery fabric to use and when.
If you want to buy fabric in person, go to your local thrift store or fabric store to make sure you know what you’re buying.
Velvet fabric is a really great choice for these types of chairs, as well as wingback chairs.
I wanted to leave the wood as it was rather than paint it as it is in good condition (plus my grandfather was not a fan of painted wooden furniture!).
I decided to pick a really bright and striking fabric so that it would still look more modern, even with the wood finish.
When I first started, I stapled on the fabric and cut off the excess fabric, as with the padding. However, that caused the fabric to pull. So, I started to fold the edge under and then staple it to the chair frame.
I stapled into the same spots/lines where the previous staples were located.
Photo: Charlie MillerTip: Be careful to line up the fabric and place staples at the mid lines on each side first and then staple along the edges.
The easiest way to get a smooth corner is to go from the middle outwards on each edge, pulling the fabric taut.
Once you have your upholstery fabric secured, you will still have a visible staple line, so this needs to be covered with some trim.
Photo: Charlie MillerThere are lots of different varieties on the market – I went with the hammered stud style trim.
These studs come in a long roll. Every fourth or fifth stud has a hole in it, and you also get a pile of loose studs with sharp nails on the end. These go through the holes and you hammer the whole strip down just at these points.
Photo: Charlie MillerThe strip of studs cut and bend easily, so they are quick and simple to work with.
You simply measure, cut, place it over your staple line and use a hammer to hammer in the studs that have the nails/spikes on them.
My last step was to re-cover the underside of the chair seat (the bottom of the chair).
I actually decided to add more padding at this point, so I shoved it in from below under the springs and smoothed it out.
Then, I used some of the fabric I had taken off of the chair (a piece that was in the best condition) and added it to cover the underside.
I thought this was a little ‘added upcycle’ and also a way of keeping a bit of the chair’s history!
I am so pleased with how the new upholstery turned out!
Photo: Charlie MillerObviously, I was nervous about recovering such a family heirloom. The new fabric just blends in so much better with my home decor and I think my Grandparents would be so happy I am keeping their piece of furniture in the family too!
If you have a chair you’d like to re-upholster, you might also need to sand down and revarnish the wooden frame of the chair
Photo: Charlie MillerPhoto: Charlie MillerI’m glad I had a go at this and didn’t use a professional upholsterer, with the right materials and the right tools, this is a job that anyone can do.
With proper care, these new chairs will stay in really good shape for a long time. I wonder what the next person to reupholster this chair will think of my sock armrest padding!
Yes! It is definitely worth reupholstering dining chairs!
Even if the reason is just to keep an old piece of furniture in your family, the sense of achievement you’ll get from giving a special chair a new lease of life is second to none.
The cost of reupholstering a dining chair will depend on whether just the fabric needs to be replaced or the padding as well.
You can expect it to cost anywhere from $20 to $50+ if you need to replace the padding.
No! Reupholstering a dining chair is quite simple once you know how.
Most dining chairs have removable seats, which makes the process much easier than reupholstering an armchair or larger piece of furniture.
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Prep Time:
1 hour
Active Time:
3 hours
Total Time:
4 hours
Difficulty:
Medium
Estimated Cost:
10
How to update an old dining room chair by reupholstering it!
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