10 Tips for Reupholstering Furniture

Whether it is a great thrift store find you have a vision for or  chairs passed down from Aunt Betty, giving your furniture a reboot can be a fun challenge.  But before you jump in you will want to gather the necessary materials and possibly a friend to help you with this project.  I found a great tutorial through Pinterest that walks you step by step through the reupholstering process.

1. You must use a fabric that is thick enough to pull hard. Does it need to be upholstery fabric specifically? No. I have upholstered a few items in canvas and it worked great. Thin cotton fabric will not work, trust me. It is not tough enough.

2. You need another "partner in crime" to help you while doing upholstery. There are two main reasons for this: 1-you need two sets of hands, one to pull the fabric tight, and the other one to staple it into place. 2-It is much more fun to upholster a chair if you can laugh with a friend while you are doing it. ;)

3. You need to adopt a "roll with the punches" type of attitude to do upholstery. I'm working on this one. Luckily the gals I have upholstered with are very much like this and it rubs off. Upholstering can be challenging, and right out annoying at times because it is tough. AND every single chair I have ever done has had different challenges, so you just have to deal with those challenges as they come.

4. Don't buy expensive fabric for two reasons: 1- If you spend over $10.00 a yard on your fabric, you risk spending the same on your chair as you could buy from the furniture store. Logically this does not make sense to me because upholstery takes time (A LOT of it). So,  make sure that it is worth it in the end. Finding inexpensive fabric can be tough so check out Home Fabrics if you have never been there. (The online store isn't nearly as good as the actual store).

 

Get the rest of the tips as well as other great tutorials from All Things Thrifty