I want to learn to reupholster furniture (chairs). Details inside.

January 21, 2013 1:27 PM

I have an old armchair that I'd like to reupholster, but I have zero prior experience in the "furniture repair / restoration" field. I was wondering if anyone could recommend a very basic "step-by-step" guide to get me started.

This previous metafilter question is helpful, but I'm looking for something more in depth. The more photos, the better.

I'd like to get to the level of the folks over at "Chairloom" outside of Philly, especially in regards to their armchairs (I have no affiliation with them, btw).

Thank you.

posted by NYC-BB to home & garden (5 answers total)

This is something I'm looking into as well! I've done a couple of small projects but never a full armchair yet. Here are a few links I found that I've been using to get started:
- this basic tutorial
- reupholstery 101
- using a drop cloth as your reupholstery fabric
and this extremely useful chart of how much fabric you'll need based on chair size/type.
posted by ghostbikes at 1:52 PM on January 21

Community Colleges that teach cabinetmaking have courses on this.
posted by sebastienbailard at 1:58 PM on January 21

I used a combination of YouTube clips and step by step tutorials found on Pinterest. One of the things I found most useful was as I took each layer off the chair, to photograph it with my phone and carefully label each piece so when it came to knowing what order to reassemble the new layers (there's SO many!) the info was right there, step by step on my phone. Good luck! It's fun. Laborious fun, but fun.
posted by Jubey at 3:03 PM on January 21

I've learned so much from DIY Uhpholstery Supply's videos it's silly.
posted by peachfuzz at 3:50 PM on January 21 [1 favorite]

It's actually not that hard. I reupholstered an entire couch on a whim and while it was a lot of work it wasn't ultra complicated.

I personally found the most helpful thing was taking the couch apart and paying careful attention to how it was constructed (I took photos of various steps of disrepair so that I could go back through them in reverse later). Second most helpful thing: pneumatic staple gun. This will change your life, trust me.

The most difficult thing for me was sewing new cushions well. I found this very helpful: http://www.designsponge.com/2012/01/upholstery-basics-boxed-cushion-sewing.html
posted by corn_bread at 3:37 PM on January 22