How to upholster kitchen/dining room chairs?

seasalt_2

Can anyone tell me how to - or point me in the direction of eg an online tutorial - reupholster kitchen/dining chairs.

They are ercol I think and older than me (I'm 53) and are the kind with a webbing base rather than a plywood one - have found several how to videos for wooden bases - using foam, wadding and a staple gun - but nothing much on doing it with webbing - do people not do that anymore these days? I desperately need to do something - they are saggy and stained - horrible to look at and uncomfortable to sit on. Would be grateful for any suggestions. Thanks.

RAS

Ahh. There is a special tool for tightening the webbing. Will hunt.

Penelope_Penguin

seasalt wrote: »

I desperately need to do something - they are saggy and stained - horrible to look at and uncomfortable to sit on. Would be grateful for any suggestions. Thanks.

They sound like wonderful chairs, just a bit loved and aged

I upholstered some dining chairs at an adult ed class. It's not difficult, just time consuming, and you need plenty of patience to do a good neat job

The webbing will need a gooseneck web stretcher. You may be able to borrow one, and as a beginner, it was certainly a 2-person job for me.

Have you unpicked one of the chairs? What's it filled with?

seasalt_2

It was actually my dad that last redid these - about 12 yrs ago and almost certainly without one of those webbing stretchers. I will ask him if he remembers. They were originally my grandparents' "good" dining table and chairs and then my parents' only table and chairs - all through my childhood - and now I have had them for the last ten years so, yes, much loved and used but badly needing the seats redone! No. I haven't unpicked one yet - we're still sitting on them - but it feels like something fairly coarse and fibery although very thin and compressed now! Coir? Horse hair? I had wondered about making a template and going down the plywood, foam and wadding route but maybe that's sacrilege? Can get plenty of horse hair - we have two elderly icelandics who shed their winter coats in spring - sometimes brush off enough to stuff several mattresses - would need well washed though! Thank you for the link, penny. Wondering if a ratchet strap ratchet would also tighten the webbing - OH has got a few of those lying about.

Penelope_Penguin

seasalt wrote: »

it feels like something fairly coarse and fibery although very thin and compressed now! Coir? Horse hair? I had wondered about making a template and going down the plywood, foam and wadding route but maybe that's sacrilege? Can get plenty of horse hair - we have two elderly icelandics who shed their winter coats in spring - sometimes brush off enough to stuff several mattresses - would need well washed though! Thank you for the link, penny. Wondering if a ratchet strap ratchet would also tighten the webbing - OH has got a few of those lying about.

It'll be horse hair - I bought mine from an upholsterer, but he's no longer there

I'd recommend doing it properly - they'll last longer that way You'll need some sort of wadding to cover the horse hair, underneath the top fabric, too.

I've been wondering what to do about web stretching when mine need doing again - I think you could improvise with a good pair of pliers, but you will need 2 people - one to pull and pone to tack

susyrosy

Horse hair is actually mane and tail hair. A black fibre is usually used instead these days (cost and availability - I doubt you'll want to hog and dock your ponies ...!). Be generous, as any stuffing will settle and compress with use. It's possible to use foam, but difficult to achieve a domed effect, if required. Cover it with a layer of wadding (felted cut up materials made into a roll of textile) - this will help stop horse hair/fibre penetrating the final cover. Then a layer of cotton twill (sorry, can't remember the name). Then the final top cover, edged with braid, and if necessary, a piece of lining material under the seat to hide the webbing.

A webbing stretcher isn't very expensive - PLEASE don't use plywood etc on genuine Ercol chairs - they're decent furniture. Black and white webbing is stronger than the brown sisal stuff - if your chairs are going to get a lot of heavy duty use, it'll be worth while using the more expensive B&W webbing. Also, staples aren't as durable as proper upholstery tacks, which will be held by the wood fibres of the frame, and won't get pulled out under the weight of a heavy bottom (grin).

Susy

ChocClare

How you normally upholster dining chairs in the "old-fashioned" way as I recall is webbing using black and white herringbone webbing, goose-neck stretcher and proper tacks; cover with hessian; add coir or ginger fibre (or horsehair but that is expensive) and stitch/regulate/roll edges until it's even, then cover with calico/lintafelt etc and then FINALLY add the top cover.

However, Ercol chairs generally use Pirelli webbing I seem to remember, and that is far easier in many ways (though it does sag after a while). You don't need a stretcher for that because you use the dowels which are usually still on the chairs. You do need string and strength however which you DON'T need so much if you use a stretching tool and herringbone webbing! :rotfl:

If you can reverse engineer it from taking off the covers to see what's underneath then the actual webbing part is pretty easy... and here's a demo to show you...

ETA: when you think you've got it tight enough YOU HAVEN'T. Pull harder!

Important Safety Tip: Make sure you have a firm grip on the webbing. Pirelli webbing will whack you with the force of a Beano headmaster brandishing his cane if you accidentally let it ping back and hit you (ask me how I know).

seasalt_2

Thank you susy - I wasn't going to nail the plywood to the chairs or anything - the seat frames lift out. I have got upholstery tacks and am secretly quite relieved about the horse hair - the birds can have it for their nests same as usual then! Have also got cotton twill and plenty of cotton quilt wadding - but maybe upholstery wadding is different? Will need to buy the webbing and the black fibre though. I had rather been hoping I could make do with materials I have already got eg could I use pillow stuffing or would that not be firm enough - I can also get hebridean fleece for the asking - that's pretty springy. Do you put anything between the webbing and the fibre stuffing or should the webbing straps be so close together that they form a woven base as it were? Don't think I will need braid as the seats sit inside the chair frame iyswim. Sorry for all the questions.

Badrick

You can get all upholstery requisites HERE ,if you click on Tip of the Month there's maybe something to guide you, for example This shows you how to use a web strainer. HTH

seasalt_2

Thanks chocclare. My chairs don't look like that. In fact, I started to wonder if they were ercol after all. I had always believed they were and they do have small labels underneath that say so but can't find anything exactly the same online. They are most like the Old Colonial Ladder Back chairs - some 1960s ones on eBay but seat inners look very slightly different. Table has T-shaped end pieces and a bar across (like a refectory table) rather than four splayed legs - can find tops that look the same and legs/end pieces that look very similar but nothing exactly the same - have also got a small dresser - again probably "old colonial". I did wonder if it might have been postwar utility furniture as there was a mention of that in one article - but no pics.

ChocClare

So, seasalt, do you have like a square frame (hollow square like a picture frame which drops into the seat) with webbing underneath and mystery padding (because you haven't looked yet) on top?

If so, and using to-hand ingredients:

Stretch and tack your webbing to the frame. Use herringbone webbing, pulled VERY tight, stretched with a proper stretcher - you slot your webbing through the stretcher and brace it against the frame to pull it really tight - then tack.

Do back to front first. Tack on a bit of webbing, then leave a webbing's width, then your next bit. You can put them a bit closer together or a BIT further apart if your chair size dictates it.

Now do side to side, weaving the webbing through the first lot.

Once you are satisfied, take a piece of hessian and stretch it over the frame and tack it down neatly. Don't forget to neaten the corners. This is now your base completed.

Now for the filling. As a quilter, you know that you COULD use sheep's wool, as that is what quilters used to use, but equally you know that if you're going to do that, then it's going to have to be stitched in place really densely to stop it moving about. This is why so many modern chairs are done in foam - it really is much easier.

The best way to see how genuine you need to be is to take one of your chairs apart. You may find it's hessian, with (probably disintegrating) hogs hair, beautifully regulated, stitched and roll-edged, then a further, smaller layer of hogs hair (to get the dome shape) ditto regulated and stitched, then maybe lintafelt, then maybe a final layer of horsehair, then skin wadding, then calico, then outer fabric.

OR you may find that it's foam with something akin to quilter's wadding over the top, all held in place with calico (or cotton twill).

I have upholstered armchairs, dressing-table stools and even recovered (if not re-upholstered) a chesterfield sofa in my time. I have gone insane re-rattaning chairs (who am I kidding? A chair :rotfl:)with golf tees and lots of swearing. I have replaced seat covers and webbing on lots of dining chairs. However, unless they were priceless antiques, I just wouldn't go to the hassle of upholstering a dining chair "properly" because it's just so time-consuming and, unless you know what you're doing, you're going to end up with a lumpy seat anyway. You may well be able to re-use the padding that's there and just replace the webbing and the covers: then you'll be laughing and your chairs will look marvellous. If the hair is poking through, then lintafelt is not that expensive - it has a sort of paper edge to it which stops the hair poking through, and replacing the calico on top of that is cheap enough. If not, I wouldn't sniff at foam and quilters' wadding - I've done it myself and it looks just as good in a quarter of the time.