The Easy Way to Reupholster Furniture for Free

Upholstered furniture lasts a long time and adds to the decor of a room, but it does eventually wear out. Hiring a professional upholsterer can strain tight budgets. Instead, you can update old furniture by covering or replacing its torn, worn and stained fabric. Updating furniture at home requires only a hammer, staple gun and lots of fabric. You can also use a simplified version of the upholstery process at home. Simply cover over old fabric and staple down.

Tape measure
Fabric
Scissors
Staple gun
Hammer
Screwdriver

Instructions

- 1
  Examine your furniture for damage, sagging cushions, broken legs and strong odors. Pieces with major damage don't make good candidates for an easy, free reupholstering. Use only pieces in good condition.
- 2
  Measure the length and width of all covered sides of the furniture. Multiply these two measurements together. This will give a rough estimate of how much fabric is needed in square feet. Add an extra yard of fabric for chairs and two extra yards for sofas.
- 3
  Pick out a piece of fabric to use for your furniture cover. Make it large enough to cover the furniture and sturdy enough to last under repeated wear.
- 4
  Break down the easy-to-unscrew or pull-apart pieces of furniture. Remove cushions, take off legs of couches and easy chairs, pull off easy-to-remove upholstery. Leave some upholstery fabric, such as dining room chair cushions, in place and simply cover it over.
- 5
  Spread the fabric over the first side of the furniture and cut away any excess.
- 6
  Staple the fabric to the top edge of the first side. Pull the fabric over the furniture, smoothing out creases and wrinkles as you go.
- 7
  Staple the fabric to the bottom edge of the first side. Hold the fabric taut as you staple, but not so taut that it begins to stretch or tear.
- 8
  Pull the fabric tight on each remaining edge of the first side and staple into place. Always staple opposing sides first.
- 9
  Upholster the rest of the piece of furniture following steps 5 through 8.
- 10
  Roll up exposed, overlapping or raw edges that remain visible to the eye and staple down on one edge of the roll to secure. Roll up the raw edges as tightly as you can to create the illusion of piping.
- 11
  Put the furniture back together. Place cushions back on the couch and attach legs to chairs.

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