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Chair seat upholstery question - please help :-(

OK here I am trying to get DS's apartment looking like a place where humans live. Soooooo I go to the local thrift/junk/reuseit store and pick up some really REALLY nice teak wood chairs that previously lived in a bank or some business. They are really really expensive chairs and in GREAT condition and only cost $6 each - soooooooo I get 4 of them. You know 4 to go around the dining table and the legs are slanted so the boys can NOT NOT NOT do the lean back they are soooooo very fond of.

Now for my problem. The seats have a scoop. What is a scoop?? Well the seat cushions are kind of like a "C" lying on the side. Or you could say they are like an "O" with the top cut off. They are upholstered in a rough fabric and I want to do them in plain black. Only problem is the covers I made do not go down into the scoop. They go across the top and when you sit in them you pull the fabric where I stapled it.

Will it work if I spray permanent adhesive on the scoop part and then lay the fabric cover on top - smooth it and then staple it to the back?? Will this permanent adhesive keep the cover 'stuck' to the darn seat. I really hate to do up these seat covers and then have them unstick and look all floppy.

Any and all ideas will be appreciated. Thanks.

Sun (well maybe 'Snow' would be more appropriate at this time)

Reply to
Sunshine Lady
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Chair seat upholstery question - please help :-(

Reply to
sewingbythecea

It is very likely that the original material was steamed and/or stretched on a mold to fit over the shapped cushion. it is unlikely that you will get a perfect fit just by cutting fabric to fit the general shape. My suggestion get something that stretches and as you mentionned glue it on. You will want to set the fabric loosely enought that it will got into the cavity but not so much that you will have unsightly folds to hide over going down over the sides. This is where the streching comes is. You will want to weight the fabric make sure that it sticks into the cavity. Easiest thing I can think of would be to use a plastic bag full of sand, that way you will be sure the cavity is filled completely. I would start by glueing in the cavity portion and then wait until it is properly glued to finish fitting the rest of the fabric.

Expect a lot of wasted material.

Also you might do better with contact cement then spray adhisive.

Jean

Reply to
Jean Péloquin

cushions are kind of like a "C" lying on the side.

upholstered in a rough fabric and I want to do them in plain

go across the top and when you sit in them you pull

I am not sure I am seeing what these chairs look like. So what I have to say may not help any, but what the hey....I feel like rambling today.

I re-covered some benches, which involved taking everything off the bench first, right down to bare wood. The benches are just a simple rectangle with legs. The middle of the rectangle is filled in with tightly stretched interwoven jute webbing. Even though it is tight, it still gives a little bit. Then that is covered with burlap. This makes the top surface of the bench. Next I added layers and layers of padding, I used poly although the original seemed to be that moss stuff and cotton. This built the seat up to a nice comfy level of padding. (There is a point to this story, trust me) Then I had to cover the builtup padded part with fabric. This is the important part. I needed to have padded the bench enough that, when someone sat on the bench, the fabric would not rip out where it was tacked to the frame. If I had just put one layer of poly batting ontop of the jute and burlap and tacked it down nice and tight, then when anyone sat on the bench the fabric would have ripped. So the padding needed to be high enough that the fabric covering it was naturally large enough not to be stretched past its limit.

whew

my fingers are tired.

I believe you will be happiest if you take off the original upholstery and re-do it. Old and/or used padding is often quite alarmingly compressed with age. And the fabric seats stretch with age/use.

There is a kind of upholstery called 'sag seat' upholstery, about which I know nothing past the name and that fact that I've never done it. um, let's see - quick look up. Sag seat upholstery is designed with a sag built in to the seat and depends on the padding to make it comfortable. I wonder if this is what you have? The book that I use for upholstery is "Upholsteringn for Everyone" by Page Parker and Alice Fornia 1976 Prentice-hall

liz young

Reply to
Elizabeth Young

seat cushions are kind of like a "C" lying on the side.

upholstered in a rough fabric and I want to do them in plain

They go across the top and when you sit in them you pull

Do you think by attaching more fabric to the back of the cushions might help? If there is a deep divot in the scoop, maybe you can anchor the extra fabric more deeply with a generous "scoop" allowance? There is a home decor flexible bar that can be inserted into the scoop. It's rubberized surface holds the fabric within the scoop... cannot recall what the name of it is.

I have a problem as well with my club-style chair.... It is irritating having the slipcover ride up and out when people sit in the seat time after time. The main problem area is the divot/scoop that is directly at the back of the cushion; the cushion is not removeable either and I did not account for the extra fabric required for "lardass" allowance.... :(

Reply to
RLK

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