How to redo your barstools to make them look new again.

After we remodeled our house back in Osakis, Minnesota, we went out and bought some round swivel bar stool chairs for the breakfast counter. The house got sold and we moved on, but the chairs have been a mainstay in our kitchen ever since.

Our barstools have a nice back to them and they’re comfortable enough to be used regularly, alas they started to show some wear and tears in the fabric. If you have stools without backs you can just buy new slipcovers for the seats. It’s harder with the backs, luckily I had some sturdy fabric on hand so I re-upholstered our bar stool seats instead. We love a simply DIY project like this, it only took about 30 minutes from start to finish.

Step by step picture DIY instructions to redo your bar stools.

DIY Seat Upholstery Items Needed:

• Foam
• Heavy Duty Fabric
• Staple Gun & Stables
• Fabric Scissors
• Black Marker
• Screwdriver or Cordless Drill

Redo your Barstools Instructions:

1. Take a black marker and trace the amount of foam you need.  We laid the new foam on top of the old seats to get the right size and shape. Using a pair of heavy duty fabric scissors makes light work of cutting out the shape for the cushions.
2. Next, measure out a square piece of the cover fabric. Measure about two inches extra from the seat itself. We didn’t want to come out short after we got started so adding a little extra gave us some wiggle room. While Silke was measuring and cutting I proceeded to take the legs off the stools. It was all one base and it was no hassle at all to remove them. Having the seat off the base of the stool would make stapling the material to the seat base that much easier.
3. With the fabric and the new foam laid out on the bar stool seat you’re ready to begin stapling. We left the old fabric and cushion on and simply covered the old with new.
4. Through a series of folding patterns (see picture below) work your way around the whole seat and staple as you go. By folding the material and laying it down we avoided the seat cover material from bunching all together at the end. The corners of the barstool seats had excess material that was cut off at the end.

End result of our re-upholstered bar stools.

We were both amazed at how easy and how inexpensive this DIY project was.

To buy new slip covers or even brand new bar stools would have been a lot more expensive than the amount we put into refurbishing our existing barstools. The same method can be used to redo chairs and benches.

Are you planning to redo your barstools? Tell us about it in the comment section below. We would love to hear from you and be sure to subscribe to receive our newest articles.