par Jenn Cox I consider myself to be a pretty crafty person, but when it comes to anything sewing-related, I have two left hands. I can’t crochet or knit, and my portfolio of successful sewing projects is limited to reattaching a few buttons on random shirts.
One thing I always wanted in my home office was a « comfy chair. » I have the standard cookie-cutter desk chair (which I want to recover someday), but I’d gotten my hands on a funky retro armchair that was rounded in shape but needed a new look to mesh with my turquoise-accented office. So off I went to the Fabricville in Greenfield Park to seek out a material. It was my first time buying fabric, and I was like a kid in a candy store. I pulled bolt upon bolt of fabric until I narrowed it down to a cool turquoise and white trellis pattern. Their staff was amazing – I gave them the measurements of the four parts of the chair that I needed to reupholster and they calculated exactly how much material I needed. And off I went.
First, I removed the seat, back, and two armrests. They were covered in a dark pink corduroy-type fabric, so I removed it. There was a second material underneath, a wonderfully ungodly mustard-yellow floral print, likely the original, but I didn’t remove that one. Instead, I left it as a base, and began cutting my new fabric to size for the four parts.
The back and chair were easy to cover, and instead of sewing anything, I used a heavy-duty industrial staple gun to secure the material in place.
The curved arms, however, proved much trickier – every time I tried to pull the fabric nice and taught. it would wrinkle and fold. But I managed to maneuver it and pull it tight enough that it all fit into place.
Then, I screwed the four pieces back on the frame and propped it in the corner of my office, next to the window. VOILA! The girl-who-never-sews recovered a chair without ever doing a single stitch!
Big thanks to Fabricville for making my first fabric-related project a big success. Stay tuned for more posts from this cheater as I attempt a quick bedskirt along with recovering some pillows.
Choose from a selection of Home décor fabrics online for this project.
*Jennifer Cox is a freelance journalist who loves everything from weddings to foodie news, photography, DIY projects, celeb gossip, & candy!
