Grandma's Chairs

I recently inherited my grandmother's dining room table and chairs. And even though I love her, I hate the Golden Girls, 80's, floral print fabric.

Not exactly my style. So I decided to be a big girl and recover the chairs. It took me a while to find the right fabric at the right price. But I finally did, so here's how I transformed my grandmother's chairs.

Obligatory before picture

First things first...Here are all the tools you will need except the staple gun which I forgot to photograph. Batting or a chair seat foam, if you want to be fancy. A level or ruler for straight lines. Scissors, screwdriver or large staple remover, white fabric pencil, black magic marker, measuring tape, and Febreeze.

Once you have everything assembled, remove the seats from the chair. Usually you just have to take out the screws. Then, start the fun job of removing the staples. I used the screwdriver by shoving it under the staple and just wiggling the staple out. I had a ton of staples because I had 3 layers of old fabric to remove. Here are the other two, nice right?

Now that all the fabric is removed your left with the old foam and old batting and wood seat. I reused the foam which is where the Febreeze comes in. My grandparent's were heavy smokers. So I Febreezed the heck out of these and put them on the back porch. It worked great. But I most definately did not reuse the old batting - gross.

Place your wood seat on your batting (or foam) and trace a pattern using the black magic marker. Cut out your batting and use it as your pattern for your other seats.

Unfortunately, I did not take pics of the next steps. But, believe me, if I can do it so can you. It's so simple. If you have a pattern in your fabric like me, make sure there isn't a part of the pattern that needs to be centered on the seat. My fabric has one so I put my batting on the wood seat then centered the pattern. I flipped the seat, pulled the fabric taught on one side and stapled. I just went around and when I came to the corners I folded it (like a present) so there is no puckering, just nice and neat.

Make sure you staple everything down nice and tight and your done. It's that simple. And here is the final result.

I love my new dining room table and chairs! Do you have any fun do it yourself fun?