Kids are messy. When they eat, food tends to get everywhere. They get finger and hand prints everywhere. They spill everywhere. It seems like nothing is sacred when it comes to kids and food. I've had couches fall victim to these messes, car interiors, clothes, but especially my dining room chairs. I recently decided that I would try recovering them so that guests would no longer be scared to sit on them, and that cleaning them would be made easier. I wasn't really freaked out about this project because I've done upholstery jobs before - I reupholstered my very first car when I was 17 - so this one was cake.
First I bought some material similar to what was on the chairs already. I decided that I would also cover each seat in vinyl so that they could be wiped down for quick and easy cleaning. Each dining set is different, but for my counter height set, there were 6 screw on the bottom of each chair that held each cushion in place. I'm going to guess that most sets are similar, so if you're going to try this, you'll need a screw driver. I also had a staple gun, staples (duh), and pliers, and scissors. (Do you see that cute little "helper," there?? She's one of the messy culprits! She's reason #4 that this project was bumped a little higher on the priority list...reasons 1-3 are her older brothers and sister!)
I had to completely take the first cushion apart so that I could use the old piece of fabric as a pattern for the new fabric and vinyl. This is where the flat-head screwdriver and the pliers came into play. There were A LOT of staples in my chairs, so this was the most time consuming part of the entire project. Once that was done, I just laid the old piece down on the new materials and cut around it. **Note that you don't have to take off the old fabric on the rest of your chairs, you can just cover the old with the new. Super easy, and such a time saver!
Now you're ready to take your cushions off and add the new materials using your staple gun and possibly your hammer - I had to use a hammer because the staples weren't going in all the way so I had to help them a little. I simply took a piece of vinyl, added the new material face down on top of the vinyl, then placed the old cushion face down on the material. Be sure to make sure it's centered before you start stapling.
For the stapling, I would suggest stapling once on each of the four sides, stretching and making sure that there aren't any wrinkles as you go (see above pic). From there, you can stretch and staple on the sides and corners of your cushion. Once you're done with the stapling, place the new cushion on the chair frame, and screw back into place. Voila! New chair cushions!!
Here's a before/after shot of my chairs. This entire project only took me about 2 hours, and a good 30-40 minutes was just taking out all the staples from the first cushion. What do you think? Would you do a project like this??
