How to Make Padded Slipcovers for Dining Chairs

You can easily cover your dining room chairs.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Scissors, Screw Gun, Screwdriver, Hammer, Upholstery tacks or Staple Gun & Staples, New Material & Polyester foam padding.

1. Begin by unscrewing one seat from the chair frame, with a screw gun or screwdriver. Carefully flip the seat over and use the screwdriver to pry all existing tacks, nails or screws holding the fabric to the seat. Measure that entire piece of fabric by length and width, and multiply that by the number of chairs you need to cover. If you are unsure of how to figure out the amount of fabric you will need take either the piece of fabric (along with the number count of chairs you will need to cover), or, the measurements you took from that piece of fabric (plus chair count)and take them to the Fabric store and they will figure it out for you. Be mindful of fabric design that you choose, that runs either up and down or side to side in order to get the proper measurement with enough to cover all your chairs. You can determine your measurements yourself too. This will depend on how wide your fabric is. Most non-upholstery fabric runs 36 or 45 inches wide, but upholstery fabrics could be as much as 54 or 60 inches wide. You can figure out how many pieces you can put side by side. You can fit two 26-inch pieces, again, making sure to take into account the fabric's design, if vertical or horizontal. Next, figure out the closest measurement to your vertical (up and down) measurement, and convert those inches to Yards (36 inches), which is how all fabric is sold. Next, multiply this by how many chairs you have to cover. So, if you have six chairs and each seat piece will fit side by side on your fabric, use your vertical requirement and multiply by 3 to get your total yardage requirement.

2. Prepare your chairs by removing the seat covers as listed at the beginning of step one. Then, use the scissors to cut your fabric. Cut two at a time if two seat measurements fit across your fabric. This saves you time. You may want to add some new Polyester fill to make the cushion more soft, and add new life to it, but don't add too much or you will need more material to cover the chair.

3. Next cover your seat and flip it over. Be sure that your seat is sitting directly dead center of the material. Begin by pulling your material either vertically or horizontally around your seat. When it feels taut, without any material give, then begin to either staple or hammer your upholstery studs to affix the material to the seat. Be sure the corners are tight without any puckers. Once you have successfully secured all the material to the seat tightly,leaving no material to become loose or pucker, then flip the seat upside down your table or working area. Place your chair frame over the seat and screw the frame to the seat tightly. Test for looseness to be sure the seat is securely placed over the frame and does not move or jiggle at all. Continue on to the next chair until all the seats are done.

Tips & Warnings

• If the screw hole in the seat becomes too big, and you can not tighten the screw into the chair, you can fill it with wood putty, let it dry, and then screw the seat back together.
• Be sure to contain all screws as you remove them from the chairs into a bowl or jar and set aside for later use to re-attach your seats to the chairs. When removing the material from the seats, place all staples and tacks into a bag to discard when finished. More than likely these will be bent and not in shape to securely hold down the fabric again. Doing this will keep your workplace orderly, so you will have your screws on hand when ready to re-assemble your chairs, and safe from accidentally getting stuck while you are working.