Reupholstered Arm Chair Reveal and Tutorial

My dear friend was given this chair and wanted to reupholster it.  She was brave enough to hire me to do it for my very first time!

Here is the before:

Here is the after! -

 

And here is how I did it...

I started by stripping the entire chair down of the old fabric and a GAZILLION nails.  Seriously, a gazillion!

Hours later I had this:

The fabric we used is a tan herringbone patterned upholstery fabric, very neutral that can go with any color scheme!  I started by covering the front largest piece first -

Next I worked on the upper and lower arms -

Then I pulled everything through to the back and stapled it - 

 The bottom seat was the last piece I added before completing the sides, back, and bottom.  The bottom piece I did a lining fabric in the middle of the seat just as the chair was before -

Next up was the sides.  I copied the way the chair was originally upholstered and did it in two separate pieces.  I started with the top side piece.  I noticed on the previous chair they had these cardboard strips that they used to flip the fabric over that was stapled to the chair.  I created my own strips by purchasing this display board at Hobby Lobby and cutting 1/2 inch strips off of it - 

Here is what it looked like once the fabric was stapled onto the strips - 

Before closing off this section of the couch I needed to replace the batting that was in the upper arms.  I used quilting batting that I double folded and stapled to this area - 

To roll the edges that aren't covered by another piece of fabric I used the existing upholstery tack strips that I salvaged from the original upholstery job.  To use these you figure out where you want the the edge of the fabric to hit when complete and cut the fabric about the width of the tack piece from that edge -

 Next you push the tack through and make sure the fabric is pushed all the way to the bottom of the little spikes -

 Then you roll it under so you have a nice edge and the tack spikes pointed straight towards the wood -

Then you hammer it in until flush - 

I did this to both sides and pulled the remaining side and bottom pieces around and stapled - 

The same goes for the back piece, cardboard strip at top, upholstery tack strips on sides, and bottom is pulled under chair and stapled.

To cover the bottom I used the original piece that is often used underneath most sofa and chairs and stapled it around on the bottom.

Due to the difficulty of getting the chair in and out of my basement (where I had more workspace), I waited until the re-upholstery was complete and protected it with a paint tarp to sand and stain the legs a dark brown.

I reupholstered the cushion and walla...

a new chair!

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