I inherited my grandmother’s dining room table and chairs when M and I moved into our apartment. It’s solid wood, and very classy, but I wanted to update the seats with fabric that was more “us” and complimented our new home. We fell in love with this colorful stripe fabric at Ikea and reupholstered the chairs ourselves. It’s a fairly simple process, but I definitely needed M to help me with the staple gun.

What you need: staple gun with staples, scissors, screw driver, enough fabric for the chairs (be generous), and an extra piece of fabric to make a template from (not pictured).

Step One // Remove Seat

Our seats were just screwed down and very easy to remove. This might be harder depending on how your seats are fastened to the chair.

Step Two // Create A Template

This was M’s genius idea. We took a spare piece of fabric, folded it around the seat cushion and cut it to size. Then we cut the real fabric based on this pattern. We decided we wanted all the seats to have a vertical stripe. Keep your pattern in mind when you’re cutting.

Step Three // Cover Cushions

Pull the fabric tight and staple gun to the seat. Start with front and back, then fold in the corner fabric. We experimented with many different folds, and they all looked pretty good so I don’t have a technique for you. Just keep the folds neat and the fabric as tight as possible.

Step Four // Secure Seat

Screw the seats back on the chairs and you’re finished!