Upholstery Jobs You Can Do Yourself

Upholstering Made Easy

Upholstery work is usually left to the experts but some upholstery jobs are very easy to accomplish by yourself. Kitchen chairs, for example, are usually simplistic in design and can be upholstered in a few hours. Some kitchen chairs have a little sewing that is required so it's important to have a sewing machine that can handle the job. Lightweight fabrics can probably be sewn on your home machine but traditional upholstery fabric needs a heavier machine to do the work.

Kitchen chairs that have just the seat upholstered are the easiest. Most kitchen chairs have the fabric stapled to the bottom then a cover that hides the fabric's raw edges. The cover can be cardboard or a dust cover - dark fabric used by upholsterers under couches and chairs.

The first order of business is to disassemble the chair. Usually there are four screws which hold the chair to the frame and they can be easily removed by turning the chair over to access them. Depending upon how the chair is made it may not be necessary to take the seat off of the frame. If the chair is wooden, for instance, the upholstery may be designed to go over the seat and staple to the bottom. If the chair is metal it's usually impossible to upholstery it without disassembling.

Upholsterers use a special tool that removes staples. If you have no way to remove the staples use a razor blade to cut the fabric, right in front of the staples, then simply pull the cover and old fabric off of the chair. The problem with using the old fabric as a pattern for the new is that it's often stretched out of shape particularly if the original material was vinyl.

To make the pattern measure the chair seat and draw the measurements onto the fabric or lay a piece of material on the chair and cut a piece slightly larger than the chair. Start upholstering by putting a staple in the center of each side of the chair, stretching the fabric taut as you do. Place the first staple then go to the opposite side, pull taut, and staple. Then go to one side and insert a staple, go to the opposite side and pull, then insert a staple. This secures the fabric to the seat while you do the detailed work.