I upcycled an older style office chair for my daughter, and it only took me 10 minutes! You can see the finished product above, with her retro desk (we plan to paint it a fun color for her "big girl room".) When I inspected the chair, screwdriver in hand, I realized there was no way to take it apart. I would have to tuck the fabric between the hard plastic shells and the upholstered seat/backing! I chose a pastel purple fabric, grabbed some scissors and got to work...and it was easier that you would think!
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| Copyright Little Mom on the Prairie & J.Rae 2013 |
1. Grab an old office chair that is structurally sound (still has all of its parts, all of the wheels, no cracks, etc.) and give it a good cleaning. Mine was very dusty! You will also need approximately 1 yard of fabric and good scissors. By 'good' I mean 'sharp'.
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| Copyright Little Mom on the Prairie & J.Rae 2013 |
2. First, I folded the fabric in half. Then I centered it on the chair back 'cushion', and tucked the center part between the plastic and the cushion, to mount the fabric into place so to speak. I pulled the fabric down to see how much I would need to cover the back (leave 1/2 inch all around for tucking) and trim the fabric to fit the shape of the back.
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| Copyright Little Mom on the Prairie & J.Rae 2013 |
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3. Next, I tucked the upper corners of the back. You have to pull the fabric taut as you go, to keep everything smooth. I used a few tiny folds, pulled and tucked tight, to make the corners look seamless.
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| Copyright Little Mom on the Prairie & J.Rae 2013 |
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4. I continued all the way around the backing, pulling and tucking as I went. This is the finished product for the top of the chair.
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| Copyright Little Mom on the Prairie & J.Rae 2013 |
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5. I repeated the process for the seat, first laying out the fabric then cutting off the excess, pulling and tucking all the way around until I had it nice and smooth, tightly tucked.
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| Copyright Little Mom on the Prairie & J.Rae 2013 |
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6. Once the chair was completely covered, I went back with a paint stirrer (wood, free from the hardware store) and used it to really shove the fabric into the little crack between the plastic and the upholstery. I didn't want the fabric to pull out once my little one sat on the seat!
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| Copyright Little Mom on the Prairie & J.Rae 2013 |
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Update: I will be removing the fabric, in order to spray paint the plastic part of the chair white. The upper part of the chair's fabric did pull loose, and I will be hot gluing it into place when I put the fabric back on. I will post pictures and a step by step of the glue process when I revisit this project this summer!
This work by
Little Mom on the Prairie is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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