I have a confession to make: the Barbie Dreamhouse that is the Delta Shelta (Ken doll sold separately) comes with chairs that are very cute, but lack personality. So, shortly after moving in, I set my eyes on finding a new office chair—one that’s comfy, but also cute. These don’t exist. 

Or rather, they do exist...but only if you’re willing to throw a couple Benjamins at it, so in my eyes they don’t exist. Luckily being the crafty gal that I am, I was able to find a chair at Good Will and reupholster it for just about thirty dollars, and now you can learn how to do this as well! 

Difficulty Level: Not for the feint of heart. 
Cost: Could run up to about forty dollars; lots of variables.
Time: This project will take at least a full day. 
Got Space?: Better save this one for a weekend home!      

Materials: 

-One desk chair 
- 3 ½ to 4 yards of fabric (Upholstery fabric is expensive—used duck cloth instead) 
-various screwdrivers (Phillips head and flat head)
-staple gun (Electric preferable) OR hammer and tacks
-scissors
-hammer 
-paint (I used spray paint) 
-primer (optional) 
-cleaning supplies 
-iron and ironing board 
-pencil

Obviously, the most important part of this project is the desk chair, so find yourself a nice one to use. My chair was found at Good Will, and according to the date printed on the bottom, it’s almost old enough to vote—created in April of 1997. Despite it’s age, it’s solidly built and was only a little banged up. I took it home for just eight dollars!   

How to bring new life to your chair:  

1) Prewash and dry your fabrics in hot water, add starch if desired. 

2) Grab a screwdriver and disassemble your chair as much as possible. My chair broke up into five pieces: the seat, side panels, back and finally the legs. Write down the order you pull it apart in, because you will reassembly it in the opposite pattern. Also, collect all your screws in a specific location. 

3) Clean up the pieces, making sure to wipe down the wood really well. Rather than replacing the foam on the chairs, I chose to just clean it by hand vacuuming it and then spraying it down with febreeze. 

4) At this point, you can choose to pull out all the staples and replace the foam, but it’s easier and looks nice if you just reupholster over the existing fabric. 

5) Optional: Spray primer on the wood. 

6) Now, you can lay down your fabric and sketch out the pieces you’ll need to cut out. You simply trace around the physical pieces, but then add several inches of give. For my side panels, about one and half inches extra was plenty. For the seat, it needed to be more like six inches. Now is not the time to try to squeeze as many pieces out of a yard as possible, space things out and find parts of your print you would like to have on display.

7) Cut out each of these pieces and iron them carefully. 

8)Optional: if the primer is dry, go paint the wood your desired color. 

9a) Start stapling the fabric to the edges of your pieces. You can have it where one edge of the fabric is tucked under the other piece of fabric from the other side. When doing this, you should try to have the side that will be facing out have it’s edges on top. This is so that the fabric will fit smoothly under the frame instead of crunching up.  

9b) My stapler and I were in a feud, so I used tacks and a hammer. If you do this too, the process will go about the same, just make sure you have the tacks really flush or it's going to cause you grief when you reassemble.

10) After you have the new fabric on all the pieces, you’re ready for reassembly. However, you need to wait until your paint is thoroughly dry before handling. 

11) Reassemble the pieces. This can be difficult to do, so you may want to employ the help of some friends (AKA my parents). You’re going to have to really wedge the pieces back in there, be gentle but strong. 

12) Put back in all your screws, I lost three screws during the process. Updates to come if my chair falls apart. 

13)  Make everyone who comes to your room super jealous by showing off your awesome new chair.