I'll Cover You

The chairs at our kitchen table have long been a source of debate in our house.

 When searching for a dinette set, we wanted something that would fit the casual, small eat-in area of our kitchen, wouldn't compete with the wood on our kitchen cabinets, and could double as a place to write lists, pay bills, eventually have kids do homework (ie. not a wood surface, because I was worried that the impressions of our writing would transfer into the wood). 

This set fit our needs perfectly.  Except for two complaints. 

My complaint: It's pretty boring.
My husband's:  "These chairs suck. They squeak when we sit down."

So after trying my skills on my desk chair at work, I decided to try my hand at re-covering the cushions with a fun fabric.  I don't know much about fabric or sewing, but the fabric I chose seemed very expensive (I think it was over $30/yd!). However a Joann's Fabric coupon coupled with the fact that I only needed a yard made the price a little easier to swallow. 

Taking apart the chair so that I could remove the cushion was really easy.  I used an allen wrench to remove the screws/bolts, and that was all that I had to do!

If you're interested in doing the project properly, you could remove the original fabric and replace it with the new.  But if you're like me, and want to preserve the original chair in case you hate the results, you can just put the new fabric over the old! This worked because I was covering fabric that was a solid, light color.  If you were covering a print or a dark color, you might have no choice but to remove the old fabric.  Either way, removal of the old fabric should be pretty easy and would require some pliers to pull out the staples holding it onto the cushion.

To add my new fabric I just cut a piece of fabric that was a few inches wider than my chair cushions, and used my staple gun to secure the new fabric. I found it easier to staple the straight edges first in order to pull the fabric taut, and to work on the corners last.  The corners are the most difficult part, but with some patience I was able to fold, pull, and staple the fabric so that the creases were on the bottom part of the cushion and would not show. 

Once I had covered all four cushions, all I had to do was put the chairs back together and it was like I had a new dinette set!

It look so much more interesting!  And as for the squeakiness? Hey, I'm no miracle worker :)
(In all honesty, Mr. M. tightened the bolts and the chairs are MUCH less squeaky).