French Chair Reupholstery Makeover and Tutorial

I love a good upholstery project... They may be messy, time-consuming, and can be slightly frustrating, but in the end, I guess I like the extra challenge reupholstering provides compared to just painting furniture.  I'm not an expert at it, but have done a few chairs and have learned a few things along the way that I thought I'd share.

As you can see above, this chair was in desperate need of a makeover, but beyond the old fabric was a cute little French chair frame in good condition.   If you're considering tackling an upholstery project, check the frame, springs, etc to make sure it's a project you can tackle.  Luckily the springs and major parts of the upholstery were in good condition on this chair, but it definitely provided some other challenges for me.

The first step of reupholstering is "deconstruction", but before you start tearing into removing the old welting and fabric, stop and take a look at how the current upholstery is attached to the frame.  If it's a complicated chair/couch, you might even want to take a  few pictures to help you remember how all the pieces fit together again. 

After analyzing how the chair is put together, gently start taking apart the fabric components of the chair (starting with the welting).  Usually the welting is just glued on so it's fairly easy to pull up an end and peel it off the frame.  Set aside the old welting after removing it so that you can use it as a reference for how much new welting to sew.  After removing the welting, slowly pull up the fabric that is stapled to the frame.  You do not want to just slice into the fabric and tear it off in pieces because you'll need the shape of the existing fabric to act as a template for cutting the new fabric.

The most important piece of advice for reupholstering is to pay close attention to how a piece was originally manufactured/upholstered.  It's like a puzzle that you are taking apart and putting back together again!  I mentioned above that this little chair had some hidden challenges... After taking off the top layer of fabric and foam, I noticed that instead of having a small ledge where the fabric is stapled to the frame, there was a deep and narrow crevice where the old fabric was stapled and glued to the frame.  This made it incredibly difficult to remove staples and old glue because none of my tools would fit down in there easily.  It took hours and lots of patience to get everything removed...  

I also mentioned above that reupholstering can get messy. Sometimes those old chairs have old foam that just crumbles after removing the fabric and this was one of those... Yuck!  Just have a drop cloth down and a shop vac handy.  Give the chair frame a good wash down and prep it for paint.  Since I was using a light-colored fabric, I wanted a nice contrast on the frame to coordinate with the charcoal birds so I painted it out in two coats of Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint in Graphite...

Since this French chair has so much detailing, it would be a shame if I didn't highlight it!  I mixed up a small batch of white wax using clear wax and Pure White Chalk Paint to tint it.  Using a small painters brush to get into the grooves, I applied the white wax and wiped the excess away and buffed when dry...

After the frame is painted, it's time to upholster... As you can see above, the old batting on the chair frame was just not cutting it...  Unless you're using very thick material to recover, your reupholstering job will only be as good as the layer underneath the fabric.

You want a nice, smooth surface for that final layer of fabric.  I simply cut some thick batting in the shape of the seat and stapled it around the frame to hold it in place.  Go easy on the corners as you don't want lumps of extra batting.  Trim it as you go...

After the batting is in place, it's time for the fun part... adding fabric!  Using the pieces of original fabric you removed from the chair, cut similar sized pieces of the new fabric.  Don't cut them out to the exact size of the old fabric, but add a few inches on each side so that you have some extra to work with.  You'll be trimming any excess off later.

After ironing the new fabric panels, start applying them to the chair frame in the proper order.  You can use a standard staple gun, but I recommend getting a pneumatic staple gun or air nailer with staple gun attachment if you are going to be doing much upholstery work (or DIY work).  I simply can't imagine not having one, but we do quite a bit of DIY.

When you're stapling the fabric onto the frame, place a single staple in the center of one side, then move to the opposite side to do the same.  Get all four sides tacked down before securing the rest of the fabric, leaving the corners for last...

The hardest part of reupholstering (at least for me) are the corners.  I can recover dining chair seats in my sleep, but I still have to play around with the fabric on the corners of chairs like this for a while... trimming, pulling, tucking, re-tucking, etc.  Just have patience... lots of it!

After the seat was done, I decided to add an accent fabric on the back of this chair with some French script fabric remnant I had on hand.  Center the fabric where you want it on the back of the chair and staple it in place just like the seat fabric.  You'll most likely have excess fabric after adding back the foam and front fabric panel, but just carefully trim the excess away.  The cut edges will be covered with the welting...

Welting is just cording (found at local fabric store) covered with fabric that provides a nice clean edge to an upholstered piece.  To make it, just cut small strips of your fabric and sew around the cording.  If you want to simplify this step, simply add some gimp trim in a coordinating color.  Both gimp and welting are attached between the frame and the fabric edge with hot glue.

In my opinion, welting really finishes off an upholstered piece, but I've used the gimp trim plenty of times as well.  

As I mentioned, reupholstering is a pretty time-consuming project and it requires some patience, but if you've shopped around for furniture lately, you'll know that upholstered pieces don't come cheap!  You'll save yourself a bundle and have a completely custom piece of furniture if you decide to tackle the work yourself.

I'm pretty happy how this little chair turned out and I think I'll hang on to it for a little while, especially since it has my current favorite fabric on it (Richloom's Birdwatcher).  

Next time you see a cute little chair at the flea market or yard sale, I hope you'll give reupholstering a shot!  

Kristen

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