how to make your office chair pretty

I'm slowly getting more of my photos from my old computer, which means that I can show you how I covered my office chair.

First you will need an office chair.

Other tools needed:

• sewing machine (although not necessary if you have big enough sections of fabric)
• staple gun and staples
• hammer
• screwdriver (to take the chair apart)

I had my office chair for a few years, and I don't know who it belonged to before me but I'm pretty sure it was being chucked out of an office. Or it was found in a skip. Can you see the foam peeking through at the front? Mmm. Quite tatty really. But wait! Don't throw it out! No! Give it a new life with some nice fabrics. Not convinced? Keep watching.

I chose to use this lovely Cath Kidston tea towel.

Then for a rummage in my fabric box for some fabrics to match. Play around with laying your fabric onto your chair until you've found a design you're really happy with. I took a few photos to compare designs.

Once you've decided on how you're going to arrange your fabrics, sew them together so that they're ready to cover the chair. Make sure the section is big enough to wrap underneath the seat.

I decided on covering the seat of the chair in the red polka dot fabric. It wasn't quite big enough, so I cut it in half and sewed a strip of the CK tea towel between the two sections of red fabric.

Once that section was ready to go onto the chair, it was just a case of wrapping the fabric around the seat and using the staple gun to attach it underneath.

Yes, it really is that messy underneath. But who is going to see it?! You might need to hammer the staples in a bit. I did. That fabric isn't going anywhere now.

Once you've stapled it, cut off any excess bits of fabric. You can use those bits again.

Done! Stand back and admire your handiwork.

Now for the back rest.

I found a pink polka dot tea towel which went nicely with the CK one.

I wanted to keep the CK label so snipped it off the corner of the tea towel and stitched the cut sides to match the others. Does that make sense? Here's a picture.

Then with one of the scraps snipped from the seat of the chair, I cut out a heart and stitched it onto the pink fabric. I hand-sewed the CK label on top. I think. I can't quite remember.

When your next section of fabric is ready, take the back rest off (you'll need to get the tools out for this) and wrap the fabric around it, stapling into place.

This can be as messy as you like because it will be covered by the plastic back of the back rest.

Snip off excess. Even if you don't think you can use it again, it makes it less bulky when re-attaching the back.

Once that's done, put the chair back together, stand back and take a photo.

Hooray!

If I were to do this again, I think I'd get some spray paint and go over those black plastic bits. That's not to say I couldn't take it apart again and spray it at a later date. But for now, I'm quite happy with this.

If you make your office chair pretty, leave a link in the comments. Or if this little project has inspired you to do something else, let me know. I'd love to see. Maybe I could feature it here on my blog.

For those of you who are interested, I'll post all of these photos and more on my Flickr. But that'll have to wait. All this blogging has made me quite tired and I need a lie down.

That must have been my longest blog post ever.