Reupholstering Old English Pub Chairs

Recovering Chairs- seems like a simple enough task. But, recovering old English pub chairs from the 1950's-1960's with metal springs is another story. Luckily while fabric shopping, I came across a wonderfully knowledgeable woman at Hancock Fabrics who REALLY knows how to upholster. She got me on the right track by helping me pick out all of the materials needed for this project!

Here is one of the chairs with the original fabric. As you can see, the seats were pretty dingy (as expected since they were in an English pub for who knows how many years). The fabric was actually very sturdy and beautifully embroidered. However, it needed to go.

I uncovered the chair seat by taking out all of these tiny nails- probably 100 + per chair. Then, remove the fabric. This is the underside of the chair once I got the nails out. Oh, a good trick for that is using a flat head screw driver and a hammer- get the flat head under the nail a little and hammer the end of the screwdriver and the nails pop right out. Be gentle though, otherwise you can cause big holes or splitting wood- no good!

Penelope wanted to help :/

This is after I took the fabric and padding out- leaving the burlap base. I took this to Hancock Fabrics and was told I should probably replace the burlap too since I was doing all this work. There were two layers of burlap on the base but they were about to give.

Here is the bare frame of the chair

Pretty cool right?!?! I thought so! Did NOT expect to find this under all of those layers. It definitely made things interesting. With the help of the wonderful store associate at Hancock Fabrics, we determined that I would need: burlap (enough for two layers), scrap vinyl (to help cushion the springs), 1" foam (for padding and only 1" because I still wanted the chairs to have that firm pub feel), bamboo batting (enough for two layers), and finally, the fabric! When I heard all of this, I was pretty overwhelmed and started thinking this project was going to take me a while. However, I ended up doing these chairs in about 6 hours- would've been less minus the wine breaks, etc.

These are all of the layers

Here is the bamboo batting being cut

I used a heavy duty staple gun with 1/4" staples (not too long) to attach the layers.

First, I did the burlap- two layers. You want to fold the burlap so it will hold better when you staple it. If not, the weave will come out and the staple will not do you any good.

Second, I cut the vinyl to fit over the burlap (a little longer on each side) and used the original nails, one on each side, to keep it in place.

Third, I cut a piece of foam to fit over vinyl and did not secure it with anything because the next layer of batting would hold it tightly.

Fourth, I cut two layers of the bamboo batting big enough to wrap around wood. I stapled them to the back side of the wood.

Fifth, I cut the fabric in the direction that I like the pattern the most and layered it on!

They came out perfectly!! In the end, I spent $43 on supplies at Hancock Fabrics thanks to coupons and sales on Veterans Day.

Here is the finished chair!

And, the before and after

Fall Wreath

Here is a fall wreath that I made. I got the wreath base at Michaels- it is made of wooden sticks/branches all wrapped around each other. I like this type of base because it's really easy to stick plastic flowers- you do not even have to hot glue or fasten them in any way- which makes it easy to use this base all year round by switching the flowers/decoration according to season. I bought the fake flowers from Michaels- I got them in big bunches and just cut them off separately- it was less expensive to do it this way. The pumpkins, gourds, and pinecones are all from Michaels as well - I bought them in bags. And lastly, the burlap (which I did not originally plan on using, will discuss later)- I bought a big roll from Michaels last year and have used it for multiple projects.

To start my wreath, I held the flowers and other decorations up to the wreath to kind of eye ball how everything was going to go. I decided on layout and start placing flowers in the wood. Once I had those situated, I hot glued the pinecones. Then came the plastic pumpkins and gourds- these gave me some difficulty as they would not stay hot glued to base of wreath for whatever reason. I tried tying them on with wire and string but that did not work because they are so dang slippery and awkwardly shaped! So, I got the burlap out and wrapped it around and super glued pumpkins and gourds to it and it worked! And made the wreath even more beautiful. Here is the finished product- and I could not be happier about how it turned out!

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog! The purpose of this blog is to share my projects with all of you. I recently became a stay at home dog mom of 3 and cat mom of 1, and now have time to do all of the crafting/ DIY's that I have been wanting to do for years! I also have a photography business with a separate blog- so please check that one out as well!