How To Remove The Back Of A Dining Room Chair

This is Part 1 of a three-office series on Reupholstering Dining Chairs with 2 padded dorsum panels. Run into Part 2 Here and Function iii HERE.

If you want to reupholster dining room chairs, yous're in for a long projection. Two years ago, when my husband and I moved from Seattle to Rhode Island, we took the advice of friends and sold virtually of our large furniture. That meant that when we finally closed on our house, nosotros had no big article of furniture! A year passed before we finally replaced our dining room prepare. Moving and ownership a house took a toll on our finances. However, when my in-laws planned a trip to come see us, we knew we needed something. That's when we chose to reupholster dining room chairs the DIY style.

Choosing to DIY

When I'g non working, I love to do "projects." My encephalon needs a break from hard-core academics and it feels practiced to work with my hands. At this fourth dimension in my life, I was in full-on project mode. The pressure to DIY had been building up over the last two years since apartment-circuitous living is not conducive to DIY projects. I knew that reupholstering dining room chairs would be a bigger project than I had taken on before but I had the time to research the process and knew that information technology was going to be a more affordable option than to purchase new.

I started by scouring Craigslist and our local thrift store. Eventually my hubby was the ane who institute this set at a Habitat for Humanity ReStore about his work. I love that ownership from Craigslist or the local thrift store keeps this piece of furniture out of the landfill while assuasive me to have a amend quality piece of furniture. These are solid forest. We could never have afforded a ready like this from another shop.

It took near some other whole year (and my sister's family coming to visit for Christmas) earlier I finally finished the project. There was some time involved in research, material option, disassembling and tracking down a sewing car. In the eye, I started working full-time over again, which meant no time for the project. I won't share all the details of what I researched because this postal service would be even longer than it is going to be, but delight let me know any questions yous have in the comments below and I will do my best to share what I found.

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Materials needed for Disassembling:

Phillips Screwdriver – to remove screws holding your seat cushion to the chair
Apartment Caput Screwdriver – to pry chair panel away from chair
Upholstery Staple Remover or Tack/Staple Remover
pliers to pull staples out if needed
Seam Ripper – if needed to take apart whatever cloth sewn to fit seat cover.

Disassemble the Chairs

Footstep 1 – Remove the panels and the nails

In my research I learned that 1 of the best means to DIY reupholster furniture is to take the piece autonomously. So, the first thing I did was take off the panels on the back of the chair.

Since at that place is a panel on both sides, I used a screwdriver to wedge in between the chair frame and the console. Once it was pulled up a trivial, I could wedge the screwdriver in to pry the panel upward all the style around.

Taking autonomously the panel showed me that the panels had been fastened with a brad nailer! The brads were very difficult to get out of the chair. I removed as many as I could with the dorsum of the hammer to pry them out (or pliers). The brads have a very little lip at the top so some I had to hammer down to the side, out of the way.

**TIP** If you lot are doing multiple chairs at a fourth dimension, apply some masking tape to mark each chair and panel. I put a slice of tape on the frame of the chair and i on each piece removed from that chair. For instance, I wrote "1" on the piece of record on the frame of the chair then "1 front" on the piece of tape on the front end wood panel. Afterward I made a record label for "1 front end" on the fabric removed from that front end panel, "one back" on the back wood console, and "1" on the seat cushion fabric removed from that chair, etc.

Footstep 2 – Remove the chair seat.

Flip the chair upside down and unscrew the screws attaching the seat to the base of the chair. Go on the nails that fall out in a lilliputian baggie so you have them for later!

This tin can take some muscle if the screws are very tight. Just be patient and get slowly, and then y'all don't strip the screws.

Step 3 – Remove the staples from the backs of all the pieces.

This step took fourth dimension, over multiple days. Removing staples is an backbreaking job, even when y'all have the right tools. I purchased this upholstery staple remover to do the job apace but the staples were so tight that the tool couldn't go nether them.

I concluded up buying this blazon of tool to wedge under the staples and pull them up a little. Then I pulled the tough staples out with pliers. It took a lot of elbow grease. In the stop, I didn't use this tool very much and wouldn't recommend it. This little guy, however, was a huge time-saver and worked much better than a regular screwdriver.

The seat cushions as well had an extra layer of material stapled to the lesser that needed to exist removed and labeled.

**TIP** If you know this process will get wearisome, plan right from the start to do Steps 1 to 3 in stages. For example, I got to the bespeak where I would practice a chair at a time. I would have the panels off, remove the staples from the backs of the chairs, and so return to unscrew the seat encompass. Lastly, I would take all the staples out of the seat embrace. That was the longest pace as my chairs had two layers of staples in the seat cover, often with staples overlapping each other all the mode around the outside!

Choose Your Material

Since the process for disassembling the chairs can be time-consuming, this is a skillful time to look for the perfect textile.

Textile Material

Option a cloth that will adapt your purposes. I did a lot of enquiry on what fabrics are all-time for dining room chairs. Hither is some of what I found:

Linen – Not for me. Though I love how information technology looks, it soils and wrinkles hands. Plus, it's difficult to clean.
Leather – Not for me. Information technology'due south easy to make clean but as well nighttime for the expect I'chiliad going for.
Vinyl – Not for me. It's like shooting fish in a barrel to treat and less expensive than leather, but I but didn't like the feel.
Cotton – Maybe, especially in a blend. Resistance to wear, fading and pilling. Nevertheless some issues with soiling and wrinkling.
Microfiber/Suede – One of top choices. Easy to make clean.

Fabric Pattern

Across the type of fabric, information technology'due south important to think about the pattern on the fabric. Some fabrics have patterns that go ane management and must be matched on every chair. This makes information technology more hard to cut your pieces since you take to be conscientious that it is running in the aforementioned direction on every piece. Information technology seemed like this would also mean wasted cloth.

Since this was my first time doing upholstery, I decided to go on it simple. I wanted a solid color fabric, or one with a small repeating pattern that could be turned in any direction. I stayed away from a material like this that had a articulate up and down.

My Choice of Material

My goal was to notice a nice, neutral, bright wait on a textile that would clean well. I ended up trying out at least fifteen different samples of fabric. To do this, go walk around Joann Fabric and feel the upholstery cloth. I also ordered some samples from FabricGuru.com.

I loved FabricGuru.com because they had great prices and fifty-fifty had deals on leftover remnants.

When I obtained the samples, I would run them through a test at home. I smeared red sauce, coffee, and other foods on the fabric samples and then cleaned them off. In the cease I went with this Hudson 43 Upholstery Velvet Material-Alabaster and waited for Joann's to accept a sale or a coupon.

Calculating how much fabric you lot need:

One time the fabric pieces had been removed from the chairs, I flattened them out and measured. The seat covers were sewed so I used a seam ripper to tear out the threads and lay the seat absorber fabric flat to get a good measurement.

**TIP: before you accept all of your seams out, take a motion-picture show of the areas that were sewn. This will exist helpful later in remembering how they actually fit together. For me, I left i cushion intact so it could be used as a reference when I somewhen sewed the new textile together.

Back panel / front panel = 19 inches x 28 inches
Seat Absorber = 30 inches ten thirty inches
I needed half dozen seat cushions and 12 front/back panels

My fabric was 56 inches wide so to figure out how many yards I would need, I did a piddling math! (I hear my high school math instructor in my head correct at present! You do use Geometry in real life!) I grabbed a slice of copy paper, and sketched out how I might cut the pieces.

Along the 56 inches I could fit i 30″ seat absorber and one 19″ front/back panel side by side.
- 30″ x 6 seat cushions down = 180″ long (would allow for all 6 seat cushions and six back/front panels)
What's left is half-dozen front/back panels.
- 56″ / 2 = 28″, which was the length of 1 front/back panel.
- Then, I could practice two forepart/dorsum panels side by side.
- Three rows of these front/back panels, 19″ deep, means 57 inches more down the fabric.
180″ + 57″ = 237″
237″/36″ in a yard = half-dozen.half dozen yards. I ordered 7 yards of fabric, only in case I messed up!

At the end of this Pace you should have:

all of the chairs downward to their frames
each console, seat absorber, frame, and fabric piece labeled with a piece of record and a number matching the chair.
fabric chosen and ordered

That's the end of step 1 to reupholster dining room chairs. In the next post I will share the tools and tips I used to put the new material on the chairs.

**I will say that even though I'm splitting this into two posts, I did kickoff recovering the chairs while I was even so disassembling some of the pieces. Information technology gave my easily and arms a pause from pulling out staples.

At present that this serial is complete, you can go directly to the next step! Encounter Office ii of this series HERE and Part 3 Hither.

Give thanks you so much for stopping by! If you lot got something from this post, please consider pinning it to your DIY project lath!