The Steen Style

I finally finished another project for our dining room! Each time I mark another item off of my to-do list for this room, I get so excited about being that much closer to a finished, complete room. Hopefully soon I will be able to show you the true before and after pictures of the whole room!

There are many tutorials on how to re-upholster a chair seat, but this is how I do it. I hope you find it informative and easy to follow!

Remember the fabric I showed you? I love it and am so happy with how much better it makes our chairs look. The best part of this project is that it is cheap and easy so when I’m tired of this fabric, I can easily change it out. I ordered 2.5 yards for this project, but only needed 1.25. I love having leftover fabric to use when I want!

Here are the supplies I used: a flathead screwdriver to take the seat off of the chair, a compressor with staple gun attached (thanks mom!), extra staples, batting and fabric (not pictured). If you don’t have an air compressor, a regular staple gun will work just fine! The ones attached to an air compressor just make it faster and easier to do this project.

To begin, remove the seats from the chairs using a screwdriver.

A little background on our dining room table and chairs: the leather on these seats is original to this set and while beautiful in its own right, blends into the wood and I needed a little more pizzazz for our dining room. When my parents gave me this dining room set, the only conditions were that I couldn’t paint the wood and I couldn’t remove the leather. It was my great-great uncle’s and was given to my parents as a wedding gift. When we moved to this house, my mom used it as the perfect opportunity to give it to us so she could get a larger table and more chairs for their house. We were happy to help her!

Next, cut out a square of fabric and batting making sure there is enough on each side to wrap around and staple to the back of the seat.

Starting on one side, staple the batting and fabric to the back of the seat. It is easiest to do one staple per side so if the fabric isn’t sitting right for you, you only have to take one staple out as opposed to five or six. As you move around the seat, make sure the batting and fabric are pulled tight but not stretching the fabric too thin. You don’t want the fabric to gape and move but don’t want it to look like it might rip apart from being too tight.

The corners are a little tricky at first, but if you play around with the fabric enough, you can get them to lay the way you want. There isn’t a right or wrong way to do this, it just depends on how you want it to look. I used two small folds to get the fabric to lay as flat as possible and put a staple in the corner where all of the folds met.

Here is a look at the original chair and the updated chair. It only took several minutes to do each chair and seeing these two next to each other made me very happy with the decision to give them a little update.

I love how these turned out! The extra color and pattern helps pep up the first room you see in our house. All it took was about 30 minutes to complete this project. No paint, no sanding, no nothing – easy peasy and a perfect weeknight project to keep me motivated on my quest to get this room finished!

Isn’t it crazy to see how this room and the chairs used to look? Very blah and beige. Obviously knocking down the wall and putting wood floors down helped but a lighter color paint and adding color to the chair seats helps so much!

This room is really coming together – finally! I love how light and bright and fun it feels.

Still left on the to-do list? Re-upholster Conner’s grandmother’s chairs, find something to hang on the wall above the buffet, move the chandelier (the light box is not centered on the ceiling so we need to get an electrician out to fix this – why you would install something off-center I’ll never know) and paint/accessorize my grandmother’s curio cabinet that she gave us. Do you have the problem of a never-ending to-do list? Every time I finish one project, three more are added!