Quick and Easy Upholstery!

BEFORE:                                                                              AFTER:

When I saw this idea from "Four Generations One Roof" on Pinterest I was excited because my rocking chair was waiting for just such a solution!  This is such a great idea to staple new fabric right over the old chair.  Why pull out millions of little staples and remove the old fabric?  You can basically skip the tedious and boring part of upholstery!  Yeah!

You can see Jessica's full tutorial here - I highly recommend checking it out!

So I have had this rocking chair from Pottery Barn for 10 years now and I was tired of the yellow slipcover it came with.  The chair is still in great shape so I figured I would have to get a new custom slipcover made, which can be pricey but I was not about to attempt sewing one myself.  When I came across this idea on Pinterest I was a little worried about ruining such a nice chair but figured it was worth a shot- if it didn't work out, I could still have a slipcover made.  I gotta say I am surprised by how good this turned out - especially since it only took a couple hours to do!  Total cost was just the price of the fabric (you need about 7 yards of 45" wide or 5 3/4 yards for the wider 54" rolls) - this fabric was on sale at Hancock Fabrics for about $80 (for 5 yards).

As the tutorial suggests I started by covering the front of the arms and the sides of the chair first.  I used a staple gun connected to an air compressor, that way the staples are very small and yet very sturdy.  I stapled right into the fabric and hoped it would catch some of the wood frame underneath - sometimes it didn't and I just pulled those staples out.  As you can see, it made a bit of an ugly "pucker" around the staples but I knew that would end up being covered with more fabric.

Next you fold your fabric along the edges for a nice finish (this covers up your ugly staples underneath).  The arm fabric gets stapled just under the rolled edge of the arm where you can't really see the staples.

Before stapling the back, I attached the fabric to the sides of the chair, then continued wrapping the back fabric all the way to the bottom of the chair where the staples are hidden.  I didn't take a ton of pictures of the process because it is already very well detailed and explained in the tutorial - sorry! :) 

 The Finished Product!  It ends up looking very much like a custom slipcover!

I cheated and just tucked some fabric around the seat cushion for now - I will have to resort to some sewing to get that part done (or I may just pay someone to do that so that it turns out nice!).  I figure one small cushion cover should be cheap to hire out?

Here you can see the small staples hidden under the roll of the arm (below is a more zoomed in view).  I also did staple the fabric in a "visible" area going down the side of the leg but I think it's still not too noticeable from the front - the staples really are so small.  I realized later I probably should have used fabric glue to hold down the areas that are more visible and staples for the areas that are hidden.  Next time!

For just the price of fabric and only 2 hours of my time - I am a happy girl (and ready to do it again, I already have my next subject! *UPDATE: to see how that turned out click here)

Now I can finally say the Nursery is done (too bad my baby is 9 months old now!).

*UPDATE: Click Here and Here to see more chairs I reupholstered using this same technique!