Re-Upholstered Desk Chair

Hi everyone!
I finally did it, I finished my chair! 

At the Knitting and Stitching Show in Olympia earlier this year, my friend J. and I came across this fabric and fell in love with it immediately:

We did our usual thing and bought one meter to split it later when we got home. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my share, re-upholster me chair! 

I had read so many cool and easy tutorials on how to re-upholster a desk chair, so it really couldn't be that difficult right? But when I got home and saw the size of the chair cushions, I knew there was no way that half a meter would cover it. So I could do one of two things: find a different fabric or buy more. Luckily, J. didn't have an immediate project so she kindly sold her half back to me (which was then used for sponsorship for one of my run, she is so sweet!). Now that I had my full meter, I needed the other supplies, most importantly: a staple gun! The bf was a bit worried about  me handing heavy machinery being clumsy as I am, but we got a good one that was quite idiot proof.

For some time now, I have sneakily tried to get the backing off the cushion but it being the only desk chair I have (and a really comfy one at that) I didn't want to ruin it. But today I had a burst of courage so today was the day this was going to happen! Of course I had to take a 'before' photo:

This was my boring blue chair. I only had two options at the time, neither was particularly great but the blue was the best. I was never really annoyed with it, but it's been a while and I really wanted to make it all pretty and girly. (ignore the mess, this is my craft area).

The bf was out on a run and I got going on disassembling the chair. When he came back I was still disassembling but had gotten a good chunk of it done already. I only needed his help for the top part of the backing as that was wedged in real tight.

But four hands make light work and with his help I managed to get the back cushion off its cover too. Yay!

 

 The backing was held against the cushion with 4 of these. Just pry them apart really hard and they will come out. The chair now only has one small crack but nothing visible.

I left the old blue covers on as I didn't really want to take out all those old staples. And lots of blogs I've read about did the same so why not? At the worst it would be more cushiony (nothing wrong with that). OMG I LOVE using the staple gun! It was great fun!

I got the entire back cushion covered, and man was I tired! Staplegunning was fun but surely much easier when you have big manly hands. But I had momentum so I kept going!

And that's when I hit a blip. I finished the seat cushion as well and it looked amazing. But when I turned the cushion over I realised I had done it upside down! I could leave it that way and be annoyed every time I looked at the chair, or I could take all the staples out and start over. With a heavy sigh I Googled 'how to remove staple gun staples' and got to work. A while later, having removed the staples, I redid the fabric the other way around and stapled it all together again. It still looked amazing, and I happily started assembling the bottom part of the chair. *silence* I was right the first time!!! NOW it was upside down! I could have cried (and think I did a bit actually). I was so frustrated!! The bf now felt really sorry for me and happily shared his IKEA experiences with me, saying it's all part of the process. Yes, but I was right the first time!! So I started removing all the staples again (no Googling needed this time). I guess it was a good thing that my hands were starting to hurt because the second set of staples was nowhere near as tight as the first so they came out fairly easy. At least now I knew which way was up, and I made sure to write that on the bottom of the chair in thick marker in case I ever wanted to do this again. Stapled everything back the way it was the first time and it was done!! I only have two washers left from the arm rest that didn't really fit in anymore but no one is going to notice

I just love my new chair!!! This is exactly what I had in mind when I bought the fabric.

It came out really well, and I am majorly proud of having done this :) Even if it took me two hours longer because of my stapling error. But at least I didn't get injured ;) I LOOOVE IT!

This post has a few how-to pics, but there are so many tutorials out there for different kinds of chairs that I am sure you can find a very detailed one if you need to. I put some up on my Pinterest and they really helped. 

I really want to eat some cake now though, I wonder if that could be the influence of the chair? ;)