In Part 1 of this series I talked about taking these chairs apart. So let’s talk about putting them back together. After I found a fix for the seat cushion for theses chairs it was time to put them on and staple them into place. I knew from pulling the huge pile of staples out of the wood the few days before that the wood was a hard wood. Really hard. I have always used a manual stapler when reupholstering chairs but I didn’t think it would do the trick with this one. So I bought a new one. 😃
This one is more fun to use than the manual one! 😉 It requires an air compressor and packs a punch. I covered the seat cushion with a layer of quilt batting and stapled it to the chair.
I had already measured the seat cushion to see how much material I would need and so that went on next. When you are stapling material to a chair keep it tight and make sure you are leaving enough material for all 4 sides. Always leave yourself a little extra to work with. When you get to the corners you have to start folding the material a little bit at a time as you place the staples. I always try to do several very small folds and try to do each corner uniform to the other corner. Front and back corners will probably look different. With these chairs I also had to work around the arms. I did a lot of tucking and folding to get a smooth look. Different chairs will require a different technique but it isn’t a hard process. Just take your time and if you don’t like how it’s going take the staples out and restart. That happened a few times for me on these chairs.
Once it was all stapled the way I wanted it I trimmed the excess. If you are stapling the material under the chair cushion you don’t have to trim any off unless it’s hanging down. With the seat cushion done I started on the back. This required 2 pieces of material with the cushion in between. I stapled this exactly the way it was done originally. For most chairs I always try to mimic what the original maker of the chair did. This was much easier than the seat except I realized the seat cushion was kind of in the way as I stapled the bottom part of the back of the chair. I should have started with he back of the chair, and on the second chair I did. I was able to finish the back but it was a little tricky. Live and learn right! 😉 I used the original material to cut the new material, but I gave myself an extra inch or so to work with.
I stapled the first piece on the back and trimmed and folded that piece down. The original padding was replaced and the second piece was stapled on top of the cushion.
I think I put as many staples back into this chair as I took out. I placed the staples right next to each other so none of the material would lift. Next the arms.
This part was easy. But on each part really pay attention to where you are placing the staples so you don’t end up with puckering or placing staples in the wrong spot. I spent A LOT of time on this. Stapling really is the time consuming part but it pays off. Time to give it a finished look. I bought some trim that matched the material the client had provided and glued it into place.
I bought some material glue and started with that but I didn’t feel it was holding the way I wanted it to. So I changed to a hot glue gun and that worked best. Ok are you ready to see them all done?
I was so happy to be done with them and happy that they turned out so pretty! For some of this I have to give credit to the client. She picked a lovely material and the perfect paint color. Although this was a big long project, that was sometimes a bit frustrating, I was happy I had the opportunity to tackle it. Probably because chairs always turn out so pretty! 😊
I hope this was a helpful post and didn’t scare anyone away from trying this on your own. Haha!! It was time consuming but not too difficult. Let me know what you think of my chair-seat fix and what you think about how these turned out. I love hearing your thoughts.
Thanks as always for taking a look at my blog. Hope you will stop by again!
Cindy
