DIY 10-Minute Chair Reupholstering

The word "reupholster" sounded to me like a nightmare of sewing machines and staple guns - in other words, expensive tools I don't own. When my mother would have furniture reupholstered, it took weeks and required agonizing over fabric swatches. I have approximately ten minutes in my life for interior decorating, so a major project was not an option.

I considered removing the grey carpet material from the cushions and stapling on new upholstery in an orthodox manner. I looked at the cushions carefully and realized that their forms were perfectly intact, and that it would be more efficient to cover the grey carpet than to remove it and replace it.

The first step was buying fabric. There is not exactly a plethora of cute fabric shops in Casper, but I had a great idea: Scarves! I bought two cheap and cute plaid scarves ($10, total) and went home with the intention of nailing them onto my chairs. I'm not sure why I chose neon blue plaid. Something about it struck me as being cool, and it matches my feeble attempt at a blue and white color scheme in my apartment. The advantage of using scarves instead of perfectly measured fabric was that I was able to tie their ends together instead of nailing and stapling the fabric to the underside of the chair. For an upholstery novice like me, this was a great discovery.

I started by wrapping the cushions in the scarves and tying the ends of the fabric together on the underside of the seats. I planned to nail the fabric to the seats, but realized that I didn't actually need to. A long project was averted - no glue, no staples, no nails, no sewing.

I might be done with upholstery, but I'm not finished giving my old chairs a makeover. The new look of the seats inspired me to paint the chairs. I was looking at them and thought, "All these need is a coat of glossy black spray paint and they'll be really sharp." That's the next step, which will have to wait until spring. The weather does not permit spray painting right now. Stay tuned for further developments in my extremely cheap and easy chair refurbishing effort.

Posted by: Chaya Goodman