Reupholstering is F-U-N

A week or so ago I saw some really lovely upholstered headboards on Pinterest. There are some DIYs for them out there but the voice of reason (my boyfriend) steered me away from starting such a huge and ambitious project in our tiny apartment.

I was still obsessing over the idea of upholstering something pretty, so I went thrifting on my way home from work one day. I found myself driving home with this pretty blah 6-dollar chair. Pretty scratched up, not a nice color, and it looks like it was originally upholstered with a piece of plastic table cloth or something.

Even Lars was disapproving at first. The one important criteria chair is that the seat is screwed on --not nailed or glued-- which allows you to remove the seat and reupholster. If you have everything together you can knock one chair out in less than 15 minutes.

All you need for this project is:
-upholstery fabric cut to size
-needle nose pliers
-screwdriver (probably a Phillips head, depends on the screws)
-staple gun
-foam if you need to replace the seat foam

The reupholstering part only took a few short steps:
*Unscrew seat from chair
*Use pliers to remove stapes and take off original upholstery
*Replace foam if desired (I did this because the foam under there looked really old and needed replacing)
*Lay the fabric wrong side up on the floor and then place foam and seat on top of them
*Wrap and staple in place
*Screw seat back onto chair

One thing I was unsure about was how to tuck the corners on my squarish seat. This awesome photo tutorial from craftaholics anonymous really helped

I kept my seat off to slap on a few coats of black semi gloss paint before putting it back together. Here's the final product.

I'm pretty pleased with it and now I want to reupholster some more furniture. It's a little bit of work for a huge pay off-- instantly prettier furniture!