You all know I’m obsessed with Craigslist…right? I’ve gotten so many great deals over the past few years…like this Ikea sofa and this amazing red hutch.
Well last year, I scored this FREE Lazy-Boy recliner on Craigslist {I’m sure you can see why it was free}.
My original intent was simply to practice reupholstering a smaller piece of furniture — something I’ve always wanted to learn. Plus I had a bunch of heavy canvas fabric sitting around {in the form of a love seat slipcover!} So, I disassembled the love seat slipcover and use that fabric {plus about 783 staples} to reupholster the chair.
I had absolutely NO idea what I was doing, NO pattern, NO instructions, and NO intention of good results! I was also using a smaller hand-held staple gun…which I soon realized is not ideal for reupholstering an entire chair.
Here I am about half way:
..
And here’s the finished product:
It actually turned out better than I thought it would 🙂
All in all, the entire project took me about 3 hours to complete and I only stapled my finger once!
It was a great learning experience and I’ll definitely try it again…especially now that I got a new shinny (not manual) staple gun!
My free chair was the perfect opportunity to try something new without fear of failure. And I even ended up with a new-to-us chair that looks great in our living room!
Ahhh…I love a good deal!
Sandra says
Andrea,
You did a really great job on this chair!
Sandra
Lorraine says
LOVE it!!Curious, though:without a pattern, how did you cut each piece of fabric out & make it fit so well(no unwanted wrinkles,bulges ect)?I have a recliner that I’ve been thinking about recovering just bcause I don’t like the color.
Andrea says
Thanks Lorraine,
It was kind of trial and error to fit all the pieces together, but I did use newspaper to “map out” the size of each piece. I simply laid newspaper against the chair and cut it out according to the shape…then laid the newspaper on the fabric and cut.
Definitely not the most professional way to do it…but it worked!
Handy Man, Crafty Woman says
That is pretty awesome, esp since you had never done it before!
Gina says
Now that’s just brilliant. It never occurred to me that not much is lost (maybe fabric?) if you get a free yucky chair just to practice. I can do that!
Thank you for the inspiration 🙂
Andrea says
Yup! And I didn’t even lose anything with the fabric because it was just an old slipcover that I took apart!
Jolon @ Savvy Chic Savings says
You know I had to click through when I saw a tweet that said FREE. 😉 Nice work!!