Electric (and hand) staple guns often don't have enough umph to set staples. A common hand and electric staple is the T-50. These are not the best. The ones I use are (round wire) 22 gauge, 5/8" crown. I use 3/8" leg. I staple regularly (a few times a week), but not all day long every day (in the last five years, I've gone through 25,000 staples). I have a Porter-Cable US58 (decoded 5/8" upholstery stapler). You can get more expensive models that will run all day long for decades, but I don't need them. Duo-Fast, Senco, BeA, Rainco, and Maestri are common brands. You do not need much of a compressor to run a stapler -- it is a really low demand tool. You can get an inexpensive compressor for less than $100. You might also check out a rental store and see if you can rent both of these, buy them used on Craig's List, sell when you are done, etc. You might also check out a local upholstery supply house to see if they have any used units.

I took gracie's advice and have some new pictures. Fabric 1 Fabric 3 (I didn't take a picture of the dot fabric) Fabric 4 (Less contrast in pattern on this photo) I didn't think about having the chairs different. They have to be side by side because of the layout of the room. Here is a very old picture from when we first moved in - only the couch, loveseat, chairs and big tv remain the same, LOL. My sense of symmetry can't seem to get past the chairs matching! Would they look okay not matching? The "black and white" pillow must stay, LOL. She is part of the reason that I picked that particular rug - the pattern is subtle when viewed as a whole, but variegated enough to hide the hair. I also have two teenagers, and this is our main living area that gets everyday use (and abuse!) lazygardens - unfortunately, the old fabric has to go. The chairs were recovered about 8 years ago, but they weren't adequately repadded at the time, and there are lots of pokey bits that are making the chairs uncomfortable. They are many-times handed-downs from dh's family, and we are sentimentally attached to them. I am planning on having them professional upholstered. If you aren't crazy about the fabrics, please, please please post a link to something you think would be better! I'm really looking for help! Thanks, Carrie

Donna, I do not want to discourage you at all, but - Do you plan to have the chair recovered so you can sell it? The wooden parts should be cleaned up and sealed or waxed also. If you need someone else to do the work for you, and plan to sell it, I am pretty sure that the labor and materials would be more than you could get for the chair. I love to sew and work on old things, and decided to try re-upholstery a few years ago. It's very satisfying and fun, but I had to add several tools to the ones that I already had. I added those tools over time, and have used them several times since. A friend who works with me recently asked me to recover a chair that her husband found - at the side of the road! I think this pic is taken in a storage room at their house. I have since taken off the old finish with Howard 'Restor A Finish' and steel wool and the oak wood is gleaming now and beautiful. It's been finished in Howard 'Feed n Wax'. I've stripped off the many layers under the seat and filled in the hundreds of tack holes, so I'll have a good surface to staple the new fabric into. I may work on it a bit this weekend. Here is a before and after - I bought this chair for $25 with crumbling velvet and needing to be tightened and re-glued from the NH Craigslist in 2012. I stripped all the fabric and stuffing layers off it - that took quite a while. It had inlays of different woods, and I had to remove the original paint and finish under that paint, and re-finish the wood - Then I had to put padding, batting and new fabric on it once it was re-glued and sturdy. You can get remnants of great fabrics on eBay or at Joann Fabric inexpensively. From buying it in July, and working on it off and on on weekends, as I work full time, I finished in in September. Because this is a hobby for me, I don't charge much for my labor. I sold the chair for $250, as it was just a fun project for me. 10x what I paid for it, but certainly not a huge profit if I charged for labor. I love to see a piece that looks awful when I start it turn into a 'swan'. My advice for you is that if you think this is the type of project you'd have fun with, then by all means go for it! But depending on where you live, to have someone do it for you, I think it may cost you more than what the chair is worth. BUT, if you can do it yourself, perhaps with the help of a friend, and keep it for yourself, I promise you'll smile every time you look at your first chair re-do project!

Back in the 1990s when I was working for JRS, Inc custom furniture company, Sharon Stone came into our showroom and was interested in one of our sofas, but she wanted the showroom model sent to her house for one night before she would decide whether she wanted to buy one. Everything we sold was made to order, and was normally to the trade only, as we did not usually sell retail. The owner decided to make an exception for Sharon Stone, and so she got to borrow the showroom model for one night. She did decide that she liked it and bought one that was made specially for her. I saved some of the leftover fabric from that order and used it when I made a silk patchwork bedspread for my mother. Anyway, my point is that it is normal to sit on a sofa before buying it, but who knows what Sharon Stone did on our sofa the night it was in her house? Incidentally, our truck driver was thrilled to get to deliver the sofa and pick it back up.