reupholstering chairs, tardis chair!

lately at work there have been a couple of shifts where i've been allowed to hide in the back and reupholster office chairs for the staff room and the office. it's so much fun! who knew that a staple gun could bring so much joy? : ) it's really quite easy too and the results look great. all you need is a chair, probably a screw driver, about 80cm (for two pads) of a fabric you like and a staple gun. each of my chairs takes about 35 mins to do. here's how you do it:

first up, take apart your chair to get at the cushions that you want to upholster. if it's a old-school dinner chair then this bit may be pretty simple (they can sometime just be lifted out), i was working with simple office chairs which had some very tight screws in so there was a bit of battling.

once you have the chair pads, take one and place it face down onto your fabric and fire one staple in the middle of each edge making sure that everything is taut. then work your way outward towards your corners like so:

  
once you get to the corners just keep pulling the fabric taut and stapling until they look good, then cut away the bunched up excess fabric that happens, something like this:

once the whole thing is done, if it looks like this, then you're doing ok:

do the same for the other pad (if you have two to do) and then screw the chair back together again:

i was recovering chairs for the staff room as the pads on ours were getting a bit grim, i basically just grabbed cheapish/fun fabrics and did as many as i could, here's some of the other ones:

and if you're creative with a permanent marker and some fabric paint, you could even make one of your bosses a tardis chair, which i am inclined to say, is kind of fabulous!: