10 Tips From A First Time Upholsterer

Starting with Bare Bones: 10 Tips from a First ­time Upholsterer

“I think my wife would love your furniture.”

My husband came home last spring from the beginnings of a service project conducted through the company he works for. They were re­vamping the home of an elderly man to be more wheelchair accessible. The home was cluttered with furniture and that’s what my husband said to him. He surprisingly replied, “Oh, I’d just like to get rid of a lot of it anyway.” This led me being invited over to awkwardly poke around his house.

Ever see a chair and think, I could totally reupholster that! Even if you’ve never reupholstered anything in your life? Yeah, that was me. So we came home with a chair and love seat we planned to reupholster, a dresser and a vanity. All beautiful, quality pieces that we bought for next to nothing. The cheap­skate in me marked a total victory.

I vaguely knew that reupholstering involved carefully taking off the existing fabric, using these pieces as patterns, and then stapling the new fabric on. I’m a sewer and familiar with fabric.

Easy peasy! I knew my beautiful chair would need a new piece of foam in the seat because it was pretty saggy. I didn’t really know anything about that part, but I was confidant that for the $30 I paid for it I could easily fix it up. I removed and saved all the trim and began, excitedly, to remove the fabric. That quickly diminished with the discovery of what was inside the chair.

Straw…

and hair…

and rotting layers of fabric…

Oh my goodness, how old was this chair?

I cleaned her out. Oh boy­ I was so grateful for our shop­vac. I pulled out every single nail…. so many nails…. literally hundreds of nails….

Tip #1 If you know you have a very old chair that uses upholstery tacks (nails) be sure your tetanus shot is current.

Mine was, fortunately, and I stuck myself several times accidentally with rusty tacks that did draw blood. Get a handy little nail puller tool as well. I picked mine up from JoAnn’s for $3 after I had pretty much pulled everything out already and it was still worth it. Anyway, no lock jaw here. Yay!

Once all the nails were out, my father ­in-­law took a look at her. The strips of woven jute (I later learned called webbing) and springs were still attached to the chair. His father made furniture for a living, so he was very helpful! The webbing needed to be replaced (wait…what? How do I do that?) and that meant the springs would also need to be retied. He mentioned how that always looked really complicated to him. (Great.)

And that was when I realized I had no idea what I was doing.

But the internet is such a beautiful thing! I found this free tutorial on designsponge.com by Amanda Brown called Upholstery Basics: Constructing Coil Seats ­Part 1 (found here) and it did NOT let me down. She gave great instructions with pictures of all the steps from beginning to end (in a several “part” series.) I would highly recommend following her tutorial if you are reupholstering something for the first time!

The first step, after my chair was cleaned and down to the bare bones, was stapling on the webbing.

Tip #2 Buy a pneumatic staple gun.

If you already have an air compressor, the gun itself is incredibly affordable. Mine works like a dream. You don’t want to be pounding down all those staples with a hammer after stapling with a hand gun. You really don’t. The pneumatic gun is awesome!

Tip #3 Installing webbing is a two person job.

I’ve got some muscle, but there is no way that I could stretch the webbing myself and staple at the same time. (Did I mention you also need to buy a tool aptly named a webbing stretcher?) This tool has small hooks that catch the webbing while you hold it at an angle and then press down to stretch across the bottom of the chair. It’s much easier said than done. Especially on a curvy chair. My husband was the muscle while I stapled. Find a friend to help you with this step!

Next was spring tying. Which is indeed a bit of an art form. Your goal is to shape the springs into a dome and have them move as one unit. Her tutorial on designsponge was good.

You can do this part by yourself (I did) but I can imagine it would be even easier if someone helped hold the springs while you tied them. I originally wondered how necessary the springs were with my thick piece of foam, but oh goodness. The chair is ridiculously comfortable. There’s always a reason, I suppose, to do things the right way.

Next up: foam.

Tip #4 Absolutely follow the tutorial for applying burlap to the edges of the foam.

This smooths and gently curves the edges of the foam beautifully. Because, honestly, the edges are going to be jagged and imperfect (as you can see from my chair below, yikes!) and this technique gives you a way to fix all that. I found this to be an easier two ­person job as well. I would pull and shape the foam while my husband stapled. I was really happy with the end result.

Laying batting over the top really smooths out any imperfections and makes the final fabric laying on top look flawless.

At this point I was super excited to get my gorgeous fabric on that chair and have this project finished! So I rushed a bit and made a horrible mistake.

Tip #5 Use cheap fabric to play with on your furniture piece to check for fit before cutting into your actual fabric.

You’d think that would be a no brainer, right? I, using my afore­mentioned upholstery knowledge, cut into my beautiful real fabric first thing, using the original fabric as a guide, only to find three­quarters of the way around that it was just not going to fit. Which also leads me to…

Tip #6 Staple sparingly around the edges of the fabric until you’ve achieved your desired look.

Then go back and fill in all the way around with staples.

If you make a mistake, you can take it out, but I wanted to cry at the number of staples we had plugged into the chair when the fabric didn’t fit. It was not easy or fun. Start light. Fill in when you’re happy with it. I wish I’d known that when I started!

Tip #7 Take your time and be very careful around legs and corners. Every chair is different.

I had such a hard time around the legs and arms. They can’t tell you in a tutorial exactly how to do your particular chair, dang it! I didn’t want any pleats or tucks, but every time I cut into my play with fabric it just did not work! So I had to give in a bit and do some pleats. But it worked for my chair. Look at a variety of chairs and see how they have been done. Try to find what works on your chair and go with it.

Tip #8 cut an extra large piece of fabric, staple it all down, and then trim off the excess last.

This is more of a suggestion, but I found it worked best to cut an extra large piece of fabric in the general shape of the chair, staple it all down, and then trim off the excess last.

So I ended up not using my original fabric as a pattern at all! (Not to say that way is wrong… but I think it would still be wise to cut it at least 3 -­ 4” bigger all the way around so you have some wiggle room.)

Tip #9 Reminder to myself in the future: buy more trim than you think you need!

I measured several times the original amount of trim that I pulled off the chair. I swear I even bought a little extra! I was coming to the end…was just about to the finish line of the project… and landed a yard short of trim. Talk about disappointing! Back to the store and it was all made right. I’m so cheap I never want to get more than I have to­ but get extra. Like at least a yard. It’s worth not making another trip! (Especially if they no longer have your trim or the right color… now that would be a nightmare!)

Tip #10 Sit back and enjoy the beauty of all that hard work!

I will keep this chair for the rest of my life. I hope my children’s children will sit on those springs that I tied You definitely treasure something more when you’ve put your own sweat into it. She is a gorgeous chair and I’m so glad I took the time to do things the right way. I’ve nicknamed her ‘the queen’s chair.’ It will be my chair, so it fits, right? Just as a little back story, my father ­in-­law did say the chair was hand carved (and also based on the stuffing) it was most likely made pre ­1900 . How awesome is that? He also took her weak joints apart, re­glued them, and re­finished her for me. I really think she could last at least another lifetime now. Amazing.

I hope you found some of my tips beneficial! As a first time upholsterer myself, I’m telling you, you can do it. Good luck!