Spoke too Soon

Remember 24 hours ago when I told you I was going to move ahead with my fabric on my $15 thrift store wingback chair? Yeah, within an hour of posting that I was second guessing myself. I just thought the giant print would be too much on a chair with that much fabric. There was nothing to break it up and I was just having doubts.  One of my best friends, Alison, is a sounding board for lots of my fabric-y projects because she is a fantastic sewer and has a great eye. She was the one that originally told me she wasn't so sure about that fabric on the wingback and I'm so glad she did. I was talking to her today, and she suggested using it on my dining room chairs!  Why didn't I think of that????

Remember way back when we got married and our parents housecrashed our apartment while we were living it up in Jamaica and put our entire apartment together? Best present ever! Well, they also surprised us by getting our dining room chairs reupholstered. They were a coffee color and looked like they belonged in a doctors office.  Well.....I loved the thought of it, but I didn't quite fall head over heels for the fabric. It was a fantastic upgrade to what was there, but something just didn't jive with me.  Don't worry...I called Mom before I took this project on to make sure I wouldn't hurt her feelings. Mom and Dad are the best. They just want us to be happy and Mom was in no way offended :)

So...Here's where we started. Cute right? But I'm high maintenance. I know it, Derrick knows it. Not high maintenance in the sense that I take forever to get ready in the morning (serioulsy...Derrick has to remind me to shower...) but high maintenance in the fact that I know what I like and what I don't and I haven't quite mastered the art of subtlety.

This was a learn as you go project which should be no surprise. At this stage of my reupholstery life, this is only the second project I've taken on. It really is easy though and if I can do it, you can do it!

First step is taking it apart. I started with the seat because seats are easy and the way it was put together was very straight forward. See those pins with the screws? That's all that's holding the seat in place and there was one in each corner.

Just unscrew those screws from the pins and your seat pops right off. Easy peasy!

Next I studied the back of the seat. It looked pretty straight forward. I'd never seen that black plastic used before but I made sure to save it and reuse it. I think it's purpose is just to cover up the raw edges of the fabric to make it look more finished and also to avoid fraying.

First step is taking out the staples. You cannot live without needle nose pliers and a flat head screw driver during this phase. Also, it helps to have Say Yes to the Dress on in the background because you're going to be here a while. Take the staples out that are holding the black plastic and then get to work on the fabric. You can also see in the picture below that I labeled where the screw holes were and which was the front and back of the seat.

This step is not necessary, but probably helpful. How do I know it's not necessary? After I recovered it with my fabric I couldn't see my screw marks and after putting the seat back in place, I realized I mixed up the front and back labels.  So....yeah.

I decided to reuse the batting because it was in perfectly good condition so I just peeled the fabric off of the batting. Now..reassembly time.

I used the fabric I pulled off the seat as a pattern. If you have a patterned fabric, make sure you pay attention to the direction it is going and how you want it to go on the chair. I cut my fabric about  an inch larger on each side. I don't really know why...I just wanted to make sure it wasn't too small and you can always trim it up later. I also went ahead and cut out the fabric for the other 3 chairs while I was at it so I could iron them all at once.

Once your fabric is ironed, lay your seat on the backside of the fabric and center it. I just put four staples in at first to make sure the pattern was nice and straight. You want to pull it nice and tight. I stapled all the way around except for the corners.

Once you have everything stapled but the corners, just fiddle around with them until each corner looks pretty. Then the seat is done! This next part was something I have never done before. The top part of the chair is held in place by hidden screws. See those dark circles on the side of the chair? That's wood putty hiding the screws. I googled around and there are different types of wood putty and different ways to remove it. I got lucky that mine was still pretty soft, so I just carved it out with a pair of scissors. I laid the old seat fabric under the chair though because that stuff will make a mess.

In this shot you can see the screw hiding in there.  

Once you get all four puttied holes cleaned out you just unscrew the top.

This is where I was able to see exactly how this was put together. The fabric is a big rectangle that is folded over the top of the chair so it looks nice and clean, but stapled along the bottom because you can't see that once is't reassembled. It's also got staples along each side edge that sits flush with the sides of the chair so those staples are hidden as well. Just take all those staples out along each edge to remove the fabric.

 Here is a shot of what the fabric looked like when my parents recovered it. Whoever reupholstered it just decided to reupholster it over the existing fabric. I decided to remove the green and yellow fabric 1. because my fabric has some white in it and I didn't want the old fabric to show through and 2. because there were so many staples in it, I wasn't sure I could staple even more in successfully. I did, however, reupholster right over this coffee colored fabric. I figured if it had been done before, it would be fine this time.

Tuck and staple and work the fabric til it's nice and tight. Then just reassemble it, putting the screws through the now open puttied holes and back into the chair. One of my screw holes was stripped and it was making the top of my chair wobbly. I'm not sure how this worked but it did. I put some hot glue down the hole and waited for it to harden and then just screwed into the hot glue...It worked and I felt like a genius. Here's the finished chair!

Three more to go!