This is an easy upholstery project!

Looking around our house recently, I realized that we don’t make very many “new” furniture purchases.  The majority of our furniture and home decor is vintage, and much of it has been renovated in some way, either with new paint or upholstery. Trying to upholster a piece of furniture for the first time can be a bit daunting, and I’ve found that the easiest way to try upholstering for the first time, is to start with something simple, like a small stool or bench. These smaller pieces will make for an easy upholstery project!

Recently, I found this great little antique piano stool at an antique market.  

It had such an unusual design and the top swiveled! It was perfect for a very simple upholstery project, and wouldn’t require a lot of detail work.

The original upholstery was a very old and worn, reddish colored velvet, which had definitely seen better days.

The first step was to remove the old upholstery.  

Some people like to upholster right over the top of the old fabric. And, it’s absolutely fine to do that if the original fabric is in good condition and doesn’t have any odors. However, that wasn’t the case with this piece, so everything had to come off.  

Oftentimes the old upholstery can be pretty nasty and you’re better off getting rid of it.

{May contain affiliate links}

Begin by removing the old trim.

My preferred tools for this are usually a flat tip screw driver and needle nose pliers.  

Using the flat tip screwdriver, I carefully work it underneath the gimp trim, and gently pull. Many times the trim is just adhered with hot glue, and it will pull right off.

If the trim is stapled or tacked on, then you will need to remove those as you go. A nice set of upholstery tools to have is this set from Amazon. They make removing those staples and tacks a little bit easier. 

Removing the old tacks and staples can be tedious work, especially on a large piece, but it’s well worth it to take the time to remove all of them.

Sometimes you will find layers of old upholstery fabric. I always remove all of them down to the “underclothes”.

Luckily, this stool only had the one cover, before we got down to the original linen and burlap upholstery.  

Ya’ll know my love of vintage grain sacks, and this stool was perfect to use one of my remnant pieces on. Grain sacks can be expensive so when I cut one up to use in upholstery, I always save all the scraps, hoping to be able to use them for another project.  Thankfully, I had a scrap piece of grain sack that worked for this little cover and I didn’t have to cut up a new sack.

Use the old cover as a pattern to cut out the new one.

Use the old seat cover as a pattern to cut out the new one, cutting the new piece a little bit larger than your pattern. You can trim the excess once the new cover is stapled in place.  

It’s easy to cut off extra fabric, but hard to add more if it’s not there!

Once the new cover was cut, I center the design on the stool and staple it with a staple gun on four sides to hold it in place.

And then rotating around the seat, stapled the rest of the cover down.

I use a pneumatic staple gun, however this electric staple gun is a good one for simple projects.

After the new cover is completely stapled onto the frame, Take fabric shears and trim away the excess fabric.

To cover up the raw edges of the upholstery and the staples, I usually use gimp trim in a complimentary color, and simply glue it down with aglue gun.

I don’t always use nail head trim, but I thought it would add a nice detail to the stool, so I just hammeredthese tacks right over the top of the gimp.

And here is the final result.  I think she turned out beautifully.

The bottom is very heavy solid wood, that had been painted white some time ago. It’s achieved a beautiful timeworn look, so I chose to leave it as is.

So if you’re thinking about trying some upholstery projects for the first time, start with something small.  

Small benches and stools can usually be found at thrift stores, flea markets, and yard sales for not a lot of money.  

They  make for an easy beginner upholstery project.

Then you can move on to larger pieces!  

Cheers,

           Cindy