A simple re-upholstery of bar stools

Everyone wallows a bit differently. When going through a rough time, some people curl up with a pint of ice cream and a sad movie. Others prefer vacations or shopping sprees. My college roommate would sautee spinach and nap. Me? I like the very specific diversion of assembling furniture. Not building furniture, I don't know how to do that, but assembling it.

That's why when I was feeling low a while ago, I spent a great deal of time at Target perusing their home furnishings section. I ended up coming home with 3 new bookshelves (all of which I probably didn't actually need), and two of their Julia Bar and Counter Stools!

The bookshelves have actually proven to be very useful (because I have far too many books and movies) and surprisingly actually fit into both my old and new apartments (albeit after days of feng shui in each), but it's the bar stools that I really love. They're perfect height for the island in my kitchen, swivel around, and have comfy cushions. Still, though I hate to admit it, I always thought they were fairly ugly. The brownish-creamish color scheme was just not working for me. It didn't match a thing in my apartment! Granted, nothing in my apartment matched a single other thing in my apartment... but I'm working on that.

In an attempt to make the bar stools a bit more aesthetically pleasing, I finally recovered them a couple months ago!

Weirdly enough, this was yet another simple project that basically boiled down to stapling things together.


RE-UPHOLSTERING BAR STOOLS

What you'll need:

-About a yard of fabric - Actually, I bought about 6 yards of fabric at once, because I had a few different projects going on at the time, so I may be wrong about only needing about a yard of fabric. You've been warned.
-Pliers
-Screwdriver (both Flathead and Phillips)
-Scissors
-Staple gun and staples
-Hammer

How to do it:

(1) Start by using your screwdriver (Phillips, probably) to remove the cushions from the stools.

I forgot to take pictures during the process, so let's
just pretend that this was the old cushion...

When you flip over your cushion, you'll see some net/mesh-like fabric covering the bottom. I just tore this off and threw it away, never to think of it again. Others might have kept it intact to re-attach later or would have attached new netting. I didn't find that necessary.

(2) Next, remove all the staples you see. There will be a ton.

When removing the staples, I found it helpful to use a Flathead screwdriver (with a very thin tip) to dig underneath the staples and then kind of lever them up so that they were no longer against the surface. I then used pliers for the actual extraction process.

Side note: After removing all the staples from the first cushion, my wrist was really hurting me because I had used wrist muscles I had no idea I had, I guess. So for the second cushion, I wore my carpal-tunnel wrist guard (which, well, the fact that I even have a carpal-tunnel wrist guard might have also explained my wrist pain), and found that it was much easier.

The most important part of this step, though, is to watch out for spiders. I apparently had a spider living inside one of my cushions. It crawled on my arm. After I screamed and ran away, I was forced to take a long break from the project as I tried to get enough courage to go back into my living room. I'm not saying that all cushions have spiders living in them, but let's be real, all cushions totally have spiders living in them.

(3) After all of the staples are finally removed, and you are finished recovering from the traumatizing experience of having a probably harmless arachnid in your general vicinity, remove the existing fabric from the cushions.

(4) Using the old fabric as a template for the new fabric, cut out two circles from the new fabric - one for each bar stool - and be sure to give yourself an extra inch or two of fabric on the border, just in case.

Usually, people use a heavier upholstery fabric, but since I bought mine for multiple projects, I just stuck with regular cotton material. I figured that even if it did wear out, it'd be easy enough to replace again (also, non-upholstery fabric is much less expensive... assuming you're not using silk or diamond-laced gold thread or anything).

Also, after seeing this pattern, I could hardly resist.

(5) Staple away.

Once you've cut the new fabric, attaching it is just a matter of pulling it taut and stapling like a mad-man (or if you're like me, a mad-woman)! I have an electric staple gun that I got from Home Depot, and it makes this process way easier. I recommend just stapling away until you are comfortable that the fabric is secure.

Keep in mind that the staples may not end up flush with the surface of the cushion. In fact, I don't think they ever will (unless it's just that I'm doing something wrong with my staple gun specifically). I ended up using my hammer to push the staples into the stool the rest of the way.

(6) Using your screwdriver (or whatever you used in step 1), re-attach the cushions.

And there you go!

I used this project as a sort of introduction to furniture re-upholstery. Next, I'm going to attempt recovering these old dining room chairs I stole out of my parents' attic (with their permission). I'm ultimately working up to recovering an old wing-back chair and ottoman that my mom got in a garage sale.

WHILE I CRAFTED: I watched Star Trek: Voyager.