Thanks! Great info! I was thinking of starting with a bench, and aready have fabric for it. Now to find the bench!

Another project will be tough to get my husband to agree to, but we have two Morris chairs, each with two loose cushions w/zippered covers. I'd love to make lighter fabric covers to replace the leather that is exactly the same color as the wood.

There are a few fabric stores around here, but I'll have to look for an upholstery supply store. I wouldn't know where to get foam, etc.

I spent two hours watching two Sailrite videos on reupholstering a chair, and it looks SO FUN!

I found a local continuing education upholstery class. Mine was a 6 week class in a high school so I had to drag my chair back and forth each week. The class really helped me with the unique supplies needed for upholstery. That said, you can learn so much from the Internet. My advice: start simple( both in furniture style and fabric choice), take lots of pictures while you are stripping your item, mark the pieces ( they all look alike when laying on your floor) and start with garage sale chairs before the family heirloom. A basic book will help you with most of this. You learn a lot with each chair. My library had the "Spruce" book. While lovely, I did not opt to purchase it.

I'm also a beginner. (I've done three chairs.) Kim's videos were so helpful, as was the looong "How to reupholster a wing chair" series on YouTube by mjamsdenfurniture, even though I wasn't redoing a wingback. I got two books, Simply Upholstery, a Sunset book, and Upholstery Basics, a Singer book. Both were helpful, but he latter was the one that I referred to constantly during the process. One piece of advice: take pictures, from far away and close up, at every tiny stage of the deconstruction process. It helped me so much to have pics of what I was trying to reproduce in reverse. It's a sometimes frustrating but very rewarding process. Have fun!

Do you think re-doing this new chaise would be doable for me? The guy at the fabric store (where the chaise is) thinks it would be an easy first project and we went through the different pieces I'd need to make.

I love the chaise, it would fit perfectly in my space and is very comfy, but my husband hates the fabric/color. The two cushions are loose, and I wouldn't do the patched faux-tufting.

It's nice and linear, not too many curves. I think you could do it! Maybe folks with more experience will weigh in with more advice about this type of furniture.

Here's the arm; also square-ish. I'd need about 12 yards of fabric.

I agree with fouramblues. You could do it!

Spruce is a good book, so is the Singer book. I would recommend both because the furniture examples are different. I also like So Simple Upholstery. I got all three at the library along with a few others and then purchased the books I thought most useful.

I think that reupholstering is easy because once you take apart the existing pieces, you have the patterns for the new pieces. You just reverse the order when putting on the new pieces. The only sewing you will do in the piece you show are the cushions and pillows and there is a simple welting at the bottom so I think it is a pretty simple project. Best advice I can give is to have a good upholstering stapler!

I used The Upholsterer's Bible by Percy W Blandford when I started many years ago. It was published in 1978 (about the time I bought it), but it is still available, and the information is still relevant.

I work with upholsterers now, and so if I have questions, I just ask them.

YIKES, I'm jumping in! I just picked up TWO chairs locally. I signed up for Kim's monthly membership. Now I need to finalize my Amazon list and order! And order fabric samples.

I also have five roman shades in the works right now.

Hurray!

Did you pass on the chaise? Can you post pics of the chairs you bought?

You are a very productive person and clearly love working with fabric : )

Husband doesn't want to spend that much right now, so I'm hoping the chaise is still there next time they have a sale... it's been there a while already, so there's a chance!

Here are the chairs. Two for $25! But I didn't have change, so I gave her $40.

Ooh, fun! I hope you enjoy the process!

Thanks for posting pics of the chairs.

If you choose a solid fabric (or tone on tone like the first chair has), it will be a much easier job.

Keep us updated on your progress!

Is that pink fabric a damask? Or is there something else I can search on fabric sites? I'm not having any luck finding tone-on-tone.

I think of damask when looking at that first chair's fabric. I see a dusty pink color and a slightly lighter tone of the same color. That's what I was referring to as tone on tone. From a distance it "reads" solid. Stripes, circles, paisley, etc. fabrics can also be found in what I call tone on tone.

As a first diy upholstery project, it will be easier to work with a fabric that doesn't have an obvious/bold pattern. You could do a bold pattern, but it will be more of a challenge.

The pink one looks like it could be a jacquard fabric.

They didn't want me to get started...

But I did, and now I have this...