This is Part 1 of a three-part series on Reupholstering Dining Chairs with two padded back panels. See Part 2 HERE and Part 3 HERE. 

If you want to reupholster dining room chairs, you’re in for a long project. Two years ago, when my husband and I moved from Seattle to Rhode Island, we took the advice of friends and sold most of our large furniture. That meant that when we finally closed on our house, we had no large furniture! A year passed before we finally replaced our dining room set. Moving and buying a house took a toll on our finances. However, when my in-laws planned a trip to come see us, we knew we needed something. That’s when we chose to reupholster dining room chairs the DIY way.

Choosing to DIY

When I’m not working, I love to do “projects.” My brain needs a break from hard-core academics and it feels good to work with my hands. At this time in my life, I was in full-on project mode. The pressure to DIY had been building up over the last two years since apartment-complex living is not conducive to DIY projects. I knew that reupholstering dining room chairs would be a bigger project than I had taken on before but I had the time to research the process and knew that it was going to be a more affordable option than to buy new.

I started by scouring Craigslist and our local thrift store. Eventually my husband was the one who found this set at a Habitat for Humanity ReStore near his work. I love that buying from Craigslist or the local thrift store keeps this furniture out of the landfill while allowing me to have a better quality piece of furniture. These are solid wood. We could never have afforded a set like this from another store.

It took almost another whole year (and my sister’s family coming to visit for Christmas) before I finally finished the project. There was some time involved in research, fabric selection, disassembling and tracking down a sewing machine. In the middle, I started working full-time again, which meant no time for the project. I won’t share all the details of what I researched because this post would be even longer than it is going to be, but please let me know any questions you have in the comments below and I will do my best to share what I found.

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Materials needed for Disassembling:

• Phillips Screwdriver –  to remove screws holding your seat cushion to the chair
• Flat Head Screwdriver – to pry chair panel away from chair
• Upholstery Staple Remover  or Tack/Staple Remover
• pliers to pull staples out if needed
• Seam Ripper – if needed to take apart any fabric sewn to fit seat cover.

Disassemble the Chairs

Step 1 – Remove the panels and the nails

In my research I learned that one of the best ways to DIY reupholster furniture is to take the piece apart. So, the first thing I did was take off the panels on the back of the chair.

Since there is a panel on both sides, I used a screwdriver to wedge in between the chair frame and the panel. Once it was pulled up a little, I could wedge the screwdriver in to pry the panel up all the way around.

Taking apart the panel showed me that the panels had been attached with a brad nailer! The brads were very difficult to get out of the chair. I removed as many as I could with the back of the hammer to pry them out (or pliers). The brads have a very little lip at the top so some I had to hammer down to the side, out of the way.

**TIP** If you are doing multiple chairs at a time, use some masking tape to mark each chair and panel. I put a piece of tape on the frame of the chair and one on each piece removed from that chair. For example, I wrote “1” on the piece of tape on the frame of the chair and then “1 front” on the piece of tape on the front wood panel. Later I made a tape label for “1 front” on the fabric removed from that front panel, “1 back” on the back wood panel, and “1” on the seat cushion fabric removed from that chair, etc.

Step 2 – Remove the chair seat.

Flip the chair upside down and unscrew the screws attaching the seat to the base of the chair. Keep the nails that fall out in a little baggie so you have them for later!

This can take some muscle if the screws are very tight. Just be patient and go slowly, so you don’t strip the screws.

Step 3 – Remove the staples from the backs of all the pieces.

This step took time, over multiple days. Removing staples is an arduous job, even when you have the right tools. I purchased this upholstery staple remover to do the job quickly but the staples were so tight that the tool couldn’t get under them.

I ended up buying this type of tool to wedge under the staples and pull them up a little. Then I pulled the tough staples out with pliers. It took a lot of elbow grease. In the end, I didn’t use this tool very much and wouldn’t recommend it. This little guy, however, was a huge time-saver and worked much better than a regular screwdriver.

The seat cushions also had an extra layer of fabric stapled to the bottom that needed to be removed and labeled.

**TIP** If you know this process will get tedious, plan right from the start to do Steps 1 to 3 in stages. For example, I got to the point where I would do a chair at a time. I would take the panels off, remove the staples from the backs of the chairs, then return to unscrew the seat cover. Lastly, I would take all the staples out of the seat cover. That was the longest step as my chairs had 2 layers of staples in the seat cover, often with staples overlapping each other all the way around the outside!

Choose Your Fabric

Since the process for disassembling the chairs can be time-consuming, this is a good time to look for the perfect fabric.

Fabric Material

Pick a fabric that will suit your purposes. I did a lot of research on what fabrics are best for dining room chairs. Here is some of what I found:

• Linen – Not for me. Though I love how it looks, it soils and wrinkles easily. Plus, it’s hard to clean.
• Leather – Not for me. It’s easy to clean but too dark for the look I’m going for.
• Vinyl – Not for me. It’s easy to care for and less expensive than leather, but I just didn’t like the feel.
• Cotton – Possibly, especially in a blend. Resistance to wear, fading and pilling. Still some issues with soiling and wrinkling.
• Microfiber/Suede – One of top choices. Easy to clean.

Fabric Pattern

Beyond the type of fabric, it’s important to think about the pattern on the fabric. Some fabrics have patterns that go one direction and must be matched on every chair. This makes it more difficult to cut your pieces since you have to be careful that it is running in the same direction on every piece. It seemed like this would also mean wasted fabric.

Since this was my first time doing upholstery, I decided to keep it simple. I wanted a solid color fabric, or one with a small repeating pattern that could be turned in any direction. I stayed away from a fabric like this that had a clear up and down.

My Choice of Fabric

My goal was to find a nice, neutral, bright look on a fabric that would clean well. I ended up trying out at least 15 different samples of fabric. To do this, go walk around Joann Fabric and feel the upholstery fabric. I also ordered some samples from FabricGuru.com.

I loved FabricGuru.com because they had great prices and even had deals on leftover remnants.

When I obtained the samples, I would run them through a test at home. I smeared red sauce, coffee, and other foods on the fabric samples and then cleaned them off. In the end I went with this Hudson 43 Upholstery Velvet Fabric-Alabaster  and waited for Joann’s to have a sale or a coupon.

Calculating how much fabric you need:

Once the fabric pieces had been removed from the chairs, I flattened them out and measured. The seat covers were sewed so I used a seam ripper to tear out the threads and lay the seat cushion fabric flat to get a good measurement.

**TIP: before you take all of your seams out, take a picture of the areas that were sewn. This will be helpful later in remembering how they actually fit together. For me, I left one cushion intact so it could be used as a reference when I eventually sewed the new fabric together. 

• Back panel / front panel = 19 inches x 28 inches
• Seat Cushion = 30 inches x 30 inches
• I needed 6 seat cushions and 12 front/back panels

My fabric was 56 inches wide so to figure out how many yards I would need, I did a little math!  (I hear my high school math teacher in my head right now! You do use Geometry in real life!) I grabbed a piece of copy paper, and sketched out how I might cut the pieces.

• Along the 56 inches I could fit one 30″ seat cushion and one 19″ front/back panel side by side.
  • 30″ x 6 seat cushions down = 180″ long (would allow for all 6 seat cushions and 6 back/front panels)
• What’s left is 6 front/back panels.
  • 56″ / 2 = 28″, which was the length of one front/back panel.
  • So, I could do two front/back panels side by side.
  • Three rows of these front/back panels, 19″ deep, means 57 inches more down the fabric.
• 180″ + 57″ = 237″
• 237″/36″ in a yard = 6.6 yards. I ordered 7 yards of fabric, just in case I messed up!

At the end of this Step you should have:

• all of the chairs down to their frames
• each panel, seat cushion, frame, and fabric piece labeled with a piece of tape and a number matching the chair.
• fabric chosen and ordered

That’s the end of step 1 to reupholster dining room chairs. In the next post I will share the tools and tips I used to put the new fabric on the chairs.

**I will say that even though I’m splitting this into two posts, I did start recovering the chairs while I was still disassembling some of the pieces. It gave my hands and arms a break from pulling out staples.

Now that this series is complete, you can go straight to the next step! See Part 2 of this series HERE and Part 3 HERE. 

Thank you so much for stopping by! If you got something from this post, please consider pinning it to your DIY project board!

~Virginia

Linking up this week with: Mad Skills Party | Inspiration Monday | That DIY Party | Block Party | Waste Not Wednesday | Your Whims Wednesday | Organized 31 | Pretty Pintastic Party