Recovering my Craigslist chairs

This is the best I can do.  Some fuzzy, sparse, and possibly boring pictures of how these:

came to look like this:

Besides the obvious painting that I covered here, the recovering was the most tedious portion of this makeover.  The existing batting on the chairs was a bit too small, so me and my mom waited about ten hours at Joann fabrics for some new stuff to be cut.  I believe it was 8oz thickness.  Dear Joann - remove about 50% of your hideous fabrics to make room for more cutting counters, mkay?   We used the old yucky batting as a guide, cutting the new stuff slightly bigger - about 1/2 inch to 1 inch all around.

Using the chair seat as a guide, we trimmed any extra batting so it perfectly covered the foam without overlapping too much.  

After the batting was cut, we again used the chair seat as a guide to cut out the fabric.  Here we are checking to make sure the size is right, and that the pattern would be the same on each chair.  While it's not exact, we got pretty close - there are three full diamonds up the middle of each chair.   

We started with about two or three staples on each side of the chair, first attaching one side, then moving to the opposite one.  Pulling it tight was key!   Once the fabric was semi-attached, we cut the excess off to make the corners easier.    

The corners were totally donkey.  My mom was much better at it than me, so she can take the credit for all of them.  Obviously, this photo was taken before we cut the extra fabric off....we learned our lesson after this one!

We tried to follow a specific process for each corner, but ended up just doing whatever laid right and looked good from the top.  If you are under my chairs for some reason, well, the upholstery on my chairs is probably the least of your concerns.  Reattaching the seats was a breeze, and here is what it looks like all finished from the bottom:

I used an electric stapler with 3/8 inch staples.  It was pretty fun stapling, however I have one tip....see how far your seat overhangs the chair frame before you start.  On the front of some chairs, you can see my staples (only from the bottom, of course) because the overhang was so great.  Oh, well! 

The cost breakdown -

6 chairs from CL: $100
fabric: $50 - and there will be two yards left over

stapler: $26

staples: $3

batting: $6 with lots left over

spray adhesive: $5

Satin Impervo: $16

primer: $5

new screws for reattaching seats: $3

=

$214 total for 6 new chairs (I haven't done the two armchairs yet!)  Not bad, eh?