Musical Chairs

Post by Sarah..

So between my title and my fabric post do I have any guesses on what I've been up to???

Ok, I'll just tell you.

Re-upholstering my dining room chairs!

And it was very looong over-due.

Don't judge me and my disgusting chairs!  I have nieces and nephews with sticky fingers... and the white has gotten progressively brown-er with each of their visits.  

So, I removed all my chair bottoms....



I was literally un-screwing them by hand and snapping a photo with the other. 
See the "Made in Malaysia" stamp?  Yeah, they are very poor quality.  Surprisingly, I've had this "cheap" set for about 5 - 6 years now.  Maybe it's not so bad after all...???

And the winning fabric is....


Actually, I had a hard time picking the fabric.  I originally went in thinking I needed to buy outdoor fabric.  I just didn't want to deal with the sticky finger incident again and I figured outdoor fabric would be the only way to combat that.
BUT.. outdoor fabric is very bright and expensive.  Two things I'm not very fond of. 

So, I ventured outside of my comfort zone (at my mom's request)...

And choose this none out-door fabric:
I either plan to scotch guard it.. or put a towel down when the kids come over.

And I actually didn't end up cutting it with scissors.  I can't cut a straight line.. and my mom has all the fancy sewing equipment on hand...

So, she did it:

And then I ironed all of my pieces.

And went right to work stapling my fabric on my seat.

Some of the things we learned through trial and error would be to start at the front of the seat.  This ensures that any problems that may arise are all forced to the back of the seat and therefore out of sight when the chair gets put back together.

I'd also advise not to pull the new fabric too tight because this will flatten certain areas of the cushion and create a lumpy look.

Trim off any excess fabric.  And Voila! 

My mom is ducking behind the cushions!



Our helper, Katie.

And here are the tools we used:
Staple gun, Hammer, Phillips-head screw driver (to rip out staples and make corrections), and scissors for the excess fabric.

I also had quite a bit of fabric left over.  My mother, and the wonderful woman that she is, made me napkins and a table runner.

I've never owned the fancy fabric napkins, and using them has always made me a little uncomfortable.
But I love them!

Here's my finished dining room set with the table runner:

And just for fun..  I set it.
With my fancy napkins...

The napkins don't really match my plates.  But it was harmless fun.

And now a quick before and after:

Total project cost was $14.

So how do you like it?  Did your fabric guess win?  Anybody else tackling sticky finger solutions?

<3 Sarah