Dinette Upholstery

There was never any question that we wanted to recover our dinette and sofa. I searched online for reviews and tutorials and ultimately settled on a durable fabric back and vinyl seat for the dinette and a slipcover for the jackknife sofa. I searched for what felt like hours for tutorials to see how I could best recover the cushions.

For the seat base I purchased four yards of navy blue vinyl because of its durability and ease of cleaning. This was far more than I needed, but I planned to also recover several other fabric pieces with the same material. I cut the fabric to size and then folded it as though I was wrapping a present. Stapled it to the wooden base and was finished with both in under 10 minutes. I love quick easy project that make a big impact. Very satisfying. We really lucked out that the foam was in very good shape too. It was so quick and easy that I almost considered doing the same with the back cushions. If you are looking for additional information I suggest looking here.

I purchased two yards of a contrasting indoor/outdoor grey print fabric  and a upholstery zipper from Joann Fabrics for the back cushions. I have years of sewing experience along the lines of curtains, cosplay, clothing, and the occasional quilt. Upholstery sewing is something I had zero experience with and I’ve only sewn a single zipper, rather unsuccessfully I might ad. This was a project I was not exactly looking forward to. Luckily there are a plethora of online tutorials that talked me into tackling this project.

First I removed the old slipcovers and laid the cushions in the sun for a few hours to help freshen them up. I then traced each side of the cushions on the reverse side of the fabric making sure the arrows were all pointing the the correct direction, cut, and laid it all out. The above picture was extremely helpful when sewing. I referred to it repeatedly to make sure I kept everything facing the right direction. Several hours later I was finished and beyond excited with how great they looked. Then I slid them on the cushion and was crushed. They were somehow each about four inches too long on each end. I pulled out the seam ripper and almost an hour later was finished for real.

I found this tutorial to be very helpful for sewing the back cushion.

Although it clashed with every part of the interior things were headed in the right direction.