How to Apply Padding to Dining Room Chairs
Apply a padded seat to your dining room chairs to increase the comfort level of hardwood chairs and add elegance to the room. Changing the appearance of the chair will change the look of your room, so be creative with the fabric design and color. The project requires few tools and will take you less than 2 hours to add padding to four chairs.
Step 1
Turn the chair upside-down and remove the screws or nails holding the seat in place. Take the seat off the chair and set it on a large piece of paper or newspaper. Trace around the seat to make a pattern for the foam padding and fabric covering.
Step 2
Increase the size of the seat pattern by 4 inches around the perimeter of the seat. Cut out the fabric covering using the enlarged pattern. Cut out the pattern for the original size of the seat and use it to cut out a piece of 1-inch-thick foam padding.
Step 3
Lay the seat fabric on a flat surface so the right side faces down. Center the piece of foam padding on top of the fabric and then set the wood seat on top of the foam so the bottom faces upward.
Step 4
Secure the padding to the wood seat by pulling the fabric in the center of the front edge to the bottom of the wood seat and stapling it in place. Staple the center edge of each fabric side to the wood seat with a staple. Flip the seat over and smooth the fabric and padding each time you secure an edge to prevent puckering.
Step 5
Secure the remaining fabric along each side by stapling it to the bottom of the wood seat with a staple. Smooth the top side of the seat as you pull the fabric to the backside to prevent puckering. Leave the fabric loose 1 inch from the corners.
Step 6
Secure the seat corners by folding one side of the fabric taut to the backside of the wood and secure it with staples. Secure the other side of the corner in the same way, making sure the fabric remains smooth on the right of the seat. Repeat this step with the other three corners.
Step 7
Cut the extra fabric on the back side of the cushion off at a distance of about 1/2 inch from the staple line.
Step 8
Attach the seat cushion to the chair with the screws or nails removed in the first step.
References
Tips
- Spray the finished seat with a stain protector to make the seat cover low maintenance.
Writer Bio
Jennifer Loucks has been writing since 1998. She previously worked as a technical writer for a software development company, creating software documentation, help documents and training curriculum. She now writes hobby-based articles on cooking, gardening, sewing and running. Loucks also trains for full marathons, half-marathons and shorter distance running. She holds a Bachelor of Science in animal science and business from University of Wisconsin-River Falls.
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