Easy How to Reupholster Your Office Chair Guide

Recover an Old Office Chair

I have an old office chair in my home office that was looking a bit worse for wear. I purchased the chair from Office Depot years ago and really loved it but it was in desperate need of an office chair makeover. I picked out the orange color to match the decor of my old office. But divorce and getting rid of the house via short sale and I found myself moving many miles away from that office. I decided the orange color no longer worked in my new location, and it was starting to look a bit worn out so, I decided to figure out how to reupholster my old office chair without sewing.

The chair was still in really good shape, and I didn’t really have the money to purchase a new office chair, so I thought about reupholstering it. I’d been admiring an article in the Spring 2010 issue of Cloth Paper Scissors Studio magazine. Liz Kettle wrote the article “Fit For a Creative Queen; Office Chair Makeover”, which detailed the steps on how to recover a chair. It looked pretty simple – wrap the new fabric around the seat bottom and secure in place with a staple gun.

home office
My old office, the reason why I purchased an orange office chair.

Make an Old Office Chair New Again

Liz detailed how to reupholster and make a slip-cover type of covering for the seat top. That wouldn’t work with my old office chair. You can’t tell from the photos, but the back of the chair is much wider at the bottom and narrow at the top. And it has quite a deep curve – guess it’s ergonomic – great for your back. I started piecing together a slip-cover for the back, but after re-pinning it twice, I still wasn’t happy with the way it looked.

I took a closer look at my chair and saw there was a thin piece of plastic, attached with six screws, around the perimeter of the seatback. I removed this trim and saw that the old orange mesh fabric was simply attached with a ton of staples. So, I cut a piece of fabric slightly larger than the seat back and tacked it in place with tons of staples. Then I reattached the black plastic trim and TA-DAH – my how to reupholster my office chair project was complete!

Reupholstering Tips and Tricks

1. I used a manual staple gun for my diy old office chair project, which I don’t recommend. Beat the heck out of my hands and wrists. If I ever decide to refinish my dining room table, I will invest in an electric staple gun before I start reupholstering the six dining room chairs.

2. You can use an upholstery weight fabric to recover your chairs. I had thinner cotton fabrics on hand, so I turned under the edge before attaching to the frame with the staple gun. This is a home office chair so I think the fabrics I used will be just fine. But if you are recovering a chair for use in a business office, you might want to invest in a heavier fabric. Local fabric stores near me, such as JoAnn’s, have a clearance section with upholstery fabric remnants, much cheaper than buying off the bolt. You don’t need too much fabric for this project, especially if you use more than one pattern like I did.

3. You have to pull the fabric pretty tight before you attach it to the chair with the staple gun. You will have too much fabric in the corners, you can trim some of the excess away. To get neat looking corners, add some pleats like I did, before stapling in place. Once you turn the seat right side up and reattach to the chair frame, you will barely notice the fabric slightly puckers in the corners. In her article, Liz Kettle added a ruffle to the bottom of one of the seats she reupholstered, which adds a bit of interest and covers the corners.

4. You might need a hammer to get the staples to go all the way into your chair frame. I had a bit of trouble with the corners, with the extra fabric, some of my staples fell out. I add more staples, and used a hammer to make sure they went all the way in. If I invest in an electric staple gun for future projects, I’ll make sure to get longer staples.

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Let’s Keep in Touch

Do you have any tips or tricks you’d like to share? Leave a comment on this post or shoot me an email: info@thecreativecottage.net and I just might feature your story in a future blog post.

Take care,
Lynn Smythe

Founder and Chief Blogger
The Creative Cottage

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