Second office chair makeover, stripped screws and a trip to the hardware store

Meet my very expensive Merit chair that I’ve had for probably 20 years.  Ask any transcriptionist, our chair is our life.  We spend hours upon hours firmly planted in a chair working and if the chair doesn’t fit, your body will tell you all about it.  I love this chair, but I’m notoriously hard on my stuff, and she was showing wear.  The seat was very dirty, and probably 10 years ago I attempted a  “slipcover” of sorts and wound up with this very baggy, ugly plaid thing, making a dirty chair dirty and ugly.

Today I took apart her apart, and the only difference from the last makeover I did was this chair has a finished back on it, requiring fabric for both sides.  Taking the back apart required a pry bar and some gentle but firm coaxing.  Taking the screws that held the front of the backrest to the backrest support bar was a MAJOR challenge.  The screws that were originally used were machine screws and I swear they were glued in as they were screwed down.  I wound up stripping the Phillips heads while trying to take them out.  So, I also highly recommend a little device called the Grabit Damaged Screw Remover, which was easy enough that even I could work it.  A couple of new machine screws — thank you Lowe’s guy for helping me find the tool and the right screws — and the project was smooth sailing from there.

This project required:

• Mallet
• Pry bar
• Pliers
• A magnet to clean up all the staples you wind up removing (optional)
• Phillips and flat head screw driver
• 3/8″ staples
• 1/4″ staples
• Electric staple gun
• Fabric, and fabric shears
• Grabit Damaged Screw Remover and power drill (really optional)

I had five consecutive days off of work, during which time I had a wishlist of things to get done.  I wound up only getting a few of the things on my list finished, but fortunately, the big one was my craft room chair makeover.

This chair is 20+ years old, and looked it.  There are tons of step-by-step videos on YouTube, and I would recommend starting there if you want to tackle a project like this.  It only took a few hours and some hard work once I got started.

A few tips:

• 

  Krypto was totally uninterested in what I was doing

  Make sure that you have enough of whatever fabric you choose to match patterns if you need to.  I didn’t on this project because I was just using up a large upholstery weight remnant that I would never in a million years use for anything else and was doing the project just to see if I could.  I came close, but not quite.  Fortunately, this chair also has a black plastic shell for the backrest, so I only had to upholster the seat and front of the backrest.  We’ll just call my pattern mismatching intentional.

• Work on those corners and angles.  I didn’t do it very well, so there are some visible folds on the edges, but they look okay, and definitely better than before.  My fabric didn’t have a lot of stretch, and that may have been the problem.
• Take pictures, not just for before and after photos, but so you know how to reassemble your chair after you’ve disassembled it.
• This project required a Phillips-head screwdriver, hammer, mallet, and Allen Wrenches.
• I used an electric staple gun and 3/8″ staples.  Be prepared to use a little muscle to get your staples to go all the way in your wooden base.  I tried using longer staples, and they would not go all the way in.  In this case, less is better.
• Have a sheet or something down on the floor so you can work without worrying about getting your project dirty.
• I added some poly quilt batting, especially to the arms, which had totally deflated over the years.
• I chose not to spray paint anything, as the base was in great condition.  The back is also a black plastic shell, with only minimal scuffing.  I just cleaned it well.

I still have a lot of leave left for this leave year, and two more chairs to do.  And better fabric.  And a little more motivation now that I’ve done it once.

UPDATE:  I had to redo my sad little lumbar pillow too.  I reused the stuffing with a little added.