Reupholstering A Thrifted Kitchen Chair | Thrift Flip

I finally updated the fabric seat of my thrifted kitchen chair! I found this wooden chair at our local Goodwill for only $4 when we first moved in and I knew right away that I was eventually going to recover the seat. The beige butterfly pattern just wasn’t for me.

As the kitchen has slowly progressed, I knew I wanted to stick to our new white and blue theme. It wasn’t originally planned out this way. Our rental kitchen cabinets happen to be white and we added a contact paper backsplash to hide the ugly brown tiles and bring both unique sections of the kitchen together in a more cohesive way. Somehow along the way the color theme became white and blue. I actually quite enjoy it. I was never a white and blue person before, but it really fits this room. It makes the space look larger and it creates a happy and calm mood. It is so bright and tranquil and truly fits with the time period of our rental home.

I can’t change the flooring or the fixtures as it is a rental home, but I can make subtle changes with my decorating.

After the contact paper backsplash that looks like vintage tiles, I bought an old used corner hutch from Facebook Marketplace  (I was originally going to paint it white, but it has really grown on me with the natural wood), and just recently added some natural linen curtains with navy blue stripes. And that is when I found it; the loveliest (and also very affordable at $3 for a half yard) blue and white fabric. It is the perfect thickness to cover a durable seat and I love the blue florals against the crisp white. It is simply perfect.

You can find the fabric I used by clicking this link.

This is what the chair looked like before:

Reupholstering a chair cushion isn’t time consuming. All you need to do this project is your chair, a new fabric large enough to cover the cushion and then some, a white or black fabric to layer underneath depending on the thickness and color of your fabric for the cushion, scissors, an iron, hammer, and upholstery nails.

I took the old nails out from the underneath of the seat to remove the fabric and uncovered a couple unexpected layers. This seat has been reupholstered before. I’m guessing this chair is late 1950s. It could be slightly older or newer.

When cutting your fabric make sure you have enough to wrap around the seat. Mine was a little tight, but just long and wide enough to tack down the new fabric. It was fortunate that I did not have to buy more materials to reconstruct the cushion; I reused what was already there.

After cutting the fabric to size I made sure to iron out the fabric first. I also covered the seat with a white fabric layer before the final layer because I was worried the white and blue floral fabric was not thick enough.

When wrapping the final upholstery around your cushion, you will want to make sure you position the fabric the way you want it so that the design is not crooked after it is nailed into place. You will start at one edge and pull the fabric tight before tacking it down with your hammer and nails.

After you have successfully wrapped one corner without causing wrinkles on the other side of the seat, you will do the next corner until you tack them all down. Then you will pull the sides of the fabric taught and continue to nail down the fabric all the way around the seat to ensure the fabric stays tight and firm over the cushion all the way around.

And voila; a seat cushion that takes about twenty minutes or so to redo.

I’m in love with the result. Such a simple change made this $4 thrifted chair look new. It reminds me of the kind of furniture you would see in a French country cottage.

In an upcoming blog post I will show you what I did with the extra fabric scraps for another kitchen DIY project.