Wing-back chair reupholster

I can't tell you how old this chair is, it was given to me by a family member, I can tell you that it's time for the chair to have a new look. I am by no means a seamstress but I'm super excited to give this a try. I'm also making a matching ottoman, to view that project click here..

So here's what we are starting out with, ol' red.

My mom came up with this awesome idea between her, my sister and I that each Friday we would do something together (craft, home update, etc) and rotate between the 3 of us whose house we will be at. Well, last Friday was our first time doing this and we went to my sister's house and worked on her boys' bedroom. She wanted to do a shiplap wall, to see that project click here. This Friday is at my house, since I'm a little nervous to do this on my own I thought it would be the perfect project to pick.

So I did a little prep work before they came. I knew I didn't want the chair legs to stay stained, so I painted them in Old White chalk paint from Annie Sloan (so that it also matched the ottoman). I also replaced the pads on the bottom of the chair with a sheet of cork, I just cut the cork down to size and glued them on with E6000.

I do have to say I'm a little disappointed in myself. A few weeks ago I saw this awesome aztec material at Joann's fabric....well, I waited too long because it was gone! So my original idea was to put the fun print on the inside of the chair and the solid fabric on the back of the chair. But now, I'm just going all gray. I read an article that gave an estimation of about 7 yds of fabric to reupholster a wingback chair. Well, the gray fabric I found on sale was just shy of 7 yds....so let's hope we don't goof.

(I ended up going with the middle fabric for the chair and the fabric at the bottom to use on the ottoman I made)

After 3 coats of white chalk paint on the legs, I sealed it all with a Polycrylic spray. Next step is to take off all the old fabric.

Now, I was pretty certain I knew what I was getting myself into when I decided to do this. I read many blogs explaining it took quite a bit of time to get the old fabric off (if you plan to use the old pieces as patterns for your new fabric)....nothing could have prepared me for the length of time I actually spent doing it (and I had 2 pairs of extra hands!!!)....I mean we are talking 4+ hours!

I began with taking the bottom off. A ton of time probably could have been saved IF I had the proper tools. There were, what felt like, millions of staples on this chair. We used everything from kitchen knifes, flat head screwdrivers, bottle openers, hammers, etc to try and get these nails out. One big gripe about this experience so far is that the staples kept breaking.

My mom started with the chair cushion and seam ripping it apart.

Didn't take long for my sister to show up and she started with helping me take out the staples, she was also kind enough to label all of my pieces.

So although it doesn't appear as though we got very far...just know that this part is A LOT of work.

But we still found a way to make it fun and share some laughs. I guess I'll just let it sit this way until my next turn for Friday girls day.

Staple removal update: I found this technique to work best for me.

Alright, so after hours and hours of staple removal, I finally got all the fabric off.

I simply laid out my old fabric on to the new, this served as my pattern.

Sewed my first piece, I really only have to sew 4 things. The front bottom (picture below), the piping, the cushion, and the arm rest covers (not sure I want them on there but I'll make them just in case). Pretty sure in this picture the front bottom piece is upside down...

I also got this cable cord at Joann's fabric, this will be used for my piping.

After cutting 2" wide strips of fabric, I began making the piping. I just changed the setting on my sewing machine so the needle was to the far left. I didn't change my sewing machine foot either, I read an article that said you needed to use a zipper foot, but it turned out just fine without it.

I can't do anything alone.

Here is about 7 yds of piping. Hopefully that will be enough.

When in doubt, pipe it out...

I'll be honest, when I was piecing the chair back together I was pretty nervous. What I found most helpful was the labeled pieces. My sister wrote on the old fabric with marker as we were taking the chair apart so we would not only know where the piece belonged but also what order to put it back together. So for example. The back of the chair had a piece of fabric and it was the first piece we removed so it was labeled #1, then I knew when I was putting the chair back together that the back piece would be the last to go on.

Even though taking the staples out seemed to be the worst part of reupholstering, I still decided to use staples to reattach the new fabric. And the nail gun made short work of it.

So far it's been Dottie approved, seriously I can't do anything without her....or so she thinks.

This was probably one of the trickiest parts of putting the fabric on. The top outer wing when I was removing the old fabric was lined on the hem with a strip of cardboard...anyway couldn't find anything of the sort at any craft stores I went to so instead I used an extra gift box that I had left over from Christmas. I cut it into 1/2" strip and used fabric adhesive. Definitely not perfect but it looked better than just folding the fabric and stapling (when I originally tried that the further down I worked the more the fabric tugged on the staples and you could clearly see the gaps in between where I stapled).

You can see the white strips here (gift box)

See...not perfect but it will do.

Finishing up the sides. I found as I went that some places you definitely had to stretch the fabric more than others, mostly towards the back and bottom parts of the chair.

It's really starting to look like something...

The back of the chair had a gap in between it and the side piece so you could tuck the fabric through and staple it on the back.

Another view

Here again I had a problem of the cardboard strips. The back was originally held on by the strips of cardboard and little upholstery nails. The nails bent when the old fabric was being removed so I decided to use the old strips of cardboard (they didn't tear apart like the outer wing section did) and staple them into place instead.

All the new fabric is on.

Last thing to staple back on was the black lining that was underneath the chair.

Hard part is finished. Now I need to make the cover for the cushion and the arm rest covers.

I ended up recycling the zipper from the original chair....one thing that I noticed right off the bat is the side pieces to the cushion that have piping in them...I didn't leave a long enough hem to sew them correctly.