Bringing new life to an old chair
Our little Ikea chair was looking a little sad. The old white slip cover we had was dirty and had been bleached to death and still looked grungy, so in our old house we lived with the chair in our bedroom with no cover and a blanket over the cushion. But in our new house the chair was front and centre in the living room – so the blanket covering the cushion wasn’t working (beside it looked a little ghetto, the kids would pull the cushion off and pick at the bare cushion underneath). Thankfully I have tons of fabric in my stash so I found the perfect fabric to make a new cover for the chair.
Since I had the old dingy cover still I used that as my pattern. I made a sketch of the chair and all it’s pieces and numbered them – then I numbered the old slip cover so when I cut it up I would know where all the pieces fit back together. I also marked notches at seam joints, put arrows so I knew the top of each piece and I also drew on the grain with a ruler using the fabric weave as my guide. Then laid all the pieces out on my new fabric and added 1/2″ seam allowance when I cut it out.
Then I just sewed it all together following the original as a guide. The fabric is a velvety finish upholstery weight so it make a beautiful rich looking chair.
I love how it looks now. Our couch across from it is a mid grey colour so it fits in perfectly.