For seating in my sewing studio I definitely wanted a swivel chair to make it easy to switch between my sewing machine and serger. As luck would have it, I had an old office chair just waiting for a makeover. I began by masking off the the black plastic wheels. Everything else got a coat of Heirloom White spray paint.
Originally, I had planned to paint the original fabric on the chair with fabric paint, followed by some sort of painted design. But, I wasn't too happy with the early results and opted for reupholstering. I had a sheet that was given to me that was going to work perfectly. After searching the web for some ideas on the process, I managed to recover the chair without taking the whole thing apart.
The back rest was super simple. I began by cutting a piece of fabric large enough to cover the chair back, with a couple of inches all around to spare. Next, I sprayed the original chair back fabric with spray adhesive. I then centered the new fabric onto the old fabric and smoothed it into place. Then with a real "high tech" tool, a.k.a a butter knife, I pushed the excess fabric into the space between the cushion and the hard plastic backing. If some of the fabric was too long to push inside, I trimmed it off, then finished pushing it in place. No staples required! I have used the chair for several weeks now and it is staying perfectly secure. The spray adhesive helped the new fabric conform to the curvature of the chair back.
For the seat cushion, I did remove it from the chair base. It was just a matter of removing a few bolts. I cut a piece of fabric large enough to cover the seat and wrap around to the underside. Once again, I used spray adhesive and centered my new fabric over the old fabric, smoothing into place. I did my best to line the stripes up with the stripes on the chair back. I stretched and wrapped the excess fabric to the underside and stapled it into place, trimming away any excess fabric. I then reattached the seat to the chair base.
I thought I was done at this point, but it just didn't look finished, so a pleated and piped skirt was added to the perimeter. I attached it by placing it upside down, and stapling it into place along the edge of the seat.
Now it looked finished!
My sewing studio also needed some secondary seating for when I'm sitting at my cutting table. I found a wooden stool at Goodwill for $4.99. I painted it with the same Heirloom White spray paint and then slip covered it with the same fabric and pleating detail. However, instead of piping, it was trimmed with some rick rack from my stash.
Total cost for seating in my sewing studio:
Office Chair....free
Gifted Sheet....free
Heirloom White Spray Paint....$4.00
Thrifted Stool....$4.99
Cording and Rick Rack...from my stash
I like to link to these great parties!
