Upholstery 101: How to Repurpose Old Furniture

Figure Out How Much Fabric You Need

My chair required two yards of fabric. I was able to determine that amount by measuring around the widest part of each piece of my chair from front to back and side to side. I kept in mind that I would need a little extra fabric for stapling and compared those numbers to the width of the fabric I would be using. The larger the chair, the more fabric needed, especially if upholstering more than one.

Dissect and Tear Down

The very best advice I can give you during the “tear down” phase is to take pictures as you start to take apart any upholstery project. In the end, you will upholster the new fabric in the exact opposite order that you took it apart. I’ve had many times, especially while doing more complicated projects, where I was certain I would intuitively remember the order in which I was supposed to put the fabric back on. Unfortunately, I was sometimes wrong.

Luckily, for a drop seat, the order is often quite simple, and on my Mid-Century Modern office chair the only tricky part was remembering which direction the legs went back onto the frame. I used a socket wrench to undo the screws on the underside. Then I used a screwdriver to work up under the rubber banding. Under this banding were hidden screws that needed to be removed. Once unscrewed, the plastic backing came right off of the front upholstery piece.

In this situation, I wanted to keep it nice and simple and did not remove the old fabric. Technically, however, a professional upholsterer would remove all old fabric, and often replace the old foam and batting involved in a chair project. Removing the old fabric is especially important if your drop seat fits inside the frame of an old wooden chair. Extra bulky fabric puts pressure on the joints of the chair and can eventually make it wobbly and unstable.

Straighten and Cut Your Fabric

Once you have dissected the chair, it is time to plan the fabric. Think about the pattern printed on the fabric. Unless you are going for an asymmetrical look, find a center place on your fabric that will make your upholstery job look symmetrical. This is where you will want to line up the center of your upholstery piece.

Once you are extremely confident that you have a plan for where each piece needs to be cut from, you can either use your old fabric as a pattern, or drape the new fabric over the upholstery piece, straighten, and cut. However, as they say, measure twice and cut once!

Staple the Fabric

Now time for the fun part! Line up the center of the fabric to the center of the chair and begin stapling one to two staples in the center of each side of  the upholstery piece. Make sure to pull the fabric nice and snug, and use your hand to smooth out extra slack. With each staple make sure to double check that you are still centered front to back and side to side.

Once you have a couple of staples anchoring all four sides of your pieces, it’s time to slowly start working towards the corners. A common beginner’s mistake is to sink staples down one side of the piece, but this results in off-centered fabric. Instead, it is better to sink a couple of staples on each side, check for centering, pull gently (but firmly) and then move to the other side. Keep this rotation process until you get to corners.

Order To Stapling Upholstery:

Corner the Fabric

There are several ways to staple down a corner, so refer back to your original images to see how the chair was originally upholstered. Here are some examples of a few types of corners and tricky areas, which you can read more about here.

Reassemble the Chair

Once you are done stapling, and have trimmed off excess fabric, it is time to put everything back together.  Remember to reference your earlier pictures.

Enjoy it!

Congrats! Project complete! Pat yourself on the back and take a seat.