Recover Chair Seats: A Beginner's Guide

Quick Ways to Recover Chair Seats at Home

See how I transformed a chair found at auction into a stylish statement piece with this easy DIY guide! Learn how to recover a chair seat without sewing, discover surprising challenges, and get inspired to tackle your own home makeover project. From fabric selection to finishing touches, this post has it all.

Have you looked at fabric at Walmart lately? 

I mean there are so many to choose from! 

Color, patterns, large print flowers... and right there you ensnared me into your web Walmart. Thank you, because otherwise, I am not sure my dressing table chair would have gotten a make-over were it not for you.

I will get around to sharing our bathroom soon once I have all the puzzle pieces in place. 

You may be asking yourself have you fixed everything now Cara? And the answer is nope, not yet. I am getting there, at least to the part where I am getting motivated to do so.

I had the wind knocked from my sails with this renovation, and I have to say, it did not feel good, but moving on to bigger and better things.

This chair was an auction find several years ago, and at $1.00, I thought project piece!

Of course, this was long before Vintage Style Gal was even on the radar. 

A simple chair makeover project is what I had in mind, and you may laugh when you hear more about the initial makeover.

You see, this chair was a single, lonely cherry queen anne style chair for sale at auction. I thought the wonderful $1.00 price tag was right up my alley, which is why this fiddle back chair came home with us.  

The seat covering was in decent shape, but not really my style. 

I had plans for this chair, and I planned to place it at my dressing table in our bathroom. 

A place for me to put on make-up, and do my girly things we tend to do. 

Since cherry wasn't really vibing with my bathroom, I spray-painted the chair white, and then purchased a gray and yellow chevron patterned fabric for the chair seat.

Back then, I wasn't aware that cherry will bleed through, and I needed a primer first, I was a newbie... heck, I still am, but now I am better equipped with what we call the "school of hard knocks", and research, my BFF these days when it comes to projects. 

Back then, we did not have as many tools as we do today. I made do with what I had, and here is where you may get a chuckle. I used a hot glue gun to recover my dressing table chair.

Yes, I did say hot glue! 

You see, hot glue and I go way back, it is always my go-to, but we purchased an electric Dewalt multi-tacker a few years ago which I have to say, made the process so much easier, especially when it came to finishing off the corners for this chair seat.

For some reason hanging things on the walls lately has given me a bit of confidence, and I think I can remodel my kitchen all by myself. Okay, that may be stretching it a bit far, but I am really getting antsy to do more DIY project ideas around here.

So when I found this lovely piece of fabric, I knew I would be recovering my chair seat. 

Recover Chair Seats: A Beginner's Guide (The beginner part may be more for me than you 😉)

Materials:

1. Chair seat
2. Material, I chose a floral pattern pattern by Waverly  
3. Multi-tacker
4. Scissors

Instructions:

• Leave the Existing Material: For simplicity, leave the existing material on the chair seat

• Position the Fabric: Place the new fabric in your desired location, especially if you are working with a pattern. I found that using a floral pattern was much easier. Plaid or stripes might have been more challenging

• Prepare the Chair Seat: Turn the chair seat over so the padding is facing a hard surface

• Start Stapling: Pull the fabric around one side and place a staple in the middle of the seat

• Staple Outward: From that staple, work outwards on both sides until you reach the end of that side

• Opposite Side Stapling: On the opposite side, start in the middle. Pull the fabric taut, place a staple in the middle, and then work your way out to both ends of that side. Pull fabric taut with each staple

• Finish the Sides: Follow the same steps to staple the other two sides

• Corners and Finishing Touches: Once all sides are stapled, pull the fabric taut in each corner, wrapping it under itself. Staple each corner to create a finished edge

• Admire Your Work: Voilà, you have successfully recovered a chair seat!

There are folks who will tell you to remove the existing fabric before you get started, but for me this was the easiest. 

Like I said, I am a rookie in this department, and I do what I am comfortable with. I suggest you craft, DIY, whatever you do at your own comfort level too. 

No sense getting stressed out, I do these projects for me, and I just share what I do with you for those who are looking for ideas on a budget.

I am obviously not a professional when it comes to recovering chairs, but looking at the chair I think it looks great! 

Just do not look under the seat, teehee. My skill level here only goes so far since I have never really taken on a project like this before. 

You never know if you can accomplish something unless you try, and try I did. I will say I am over the moon to have a new to me chair for my dressing table now.

Part II: Chair Makeover

Since I am all about vintage pieces, I decided to also add a bit of years to my chair with our orbital sander. I will admit, pulling back the paint initially was easy, and then I found I went a bit too far, and so the chair began to change, and honestly I am leaving it as it is. 

My plan was to have a few scuff marks on the fiddle back, and I found quickly I sanded too far down, and was very disappointed with the look.

Scuff mark? I think not, it looks like I sanded one place and then left it. Yuck! 

I made the decision to completely remove the paint from the fiddle back, and leave the rest distressed around the edges. 

Once I had the seat recovered, I noticed the nuts were not tightened down, leaving my chair a bit wobbly. We certainly cannot have that, or I may end up on the floor.

I grabbed a socket wrench, choosing a socket by placing it over the nut to measure for size. Once I knew I had the correct socket size, I began tightening all of the nuts down for a secure chair. Nobody wants to end up on the floor, least of all me.  

See, it's all about comfort level, and I am okay with how the chair turned out. 

I know there will be those who think, uh... but I'm okay with that. Remember, we live in an old house, and so I like to fill it with old tattered around the edge things.

Side Note: Oh, you see that, do you? Who puts wood trim on top of an electric heater? It was to be removed, and wall to be patched back up, but it didn't happen as you see.  If you missed Remodeling Disaster: What Went Wrong, you can learn more about our bathroom. 

I am a firm believer we need to encourage each other so we can gain the confidence to try new things. I certainly do that week in and week out. I admit, I am a bit of an experimenter, I get a kick out of trying new things around our home, but I wasn't always like that, but that's a story for another day. 

Hopefully when you visit each week, you find something that you are willing to try too. Remember, I am here cheering you on for moral support because that's what friends do after all.  

I'm curious, will you take on the task of recovering a simple chair likes ours now? I sure hope so. 

Don't Forget to Pin for Later!

Ciao,

Cara