HOW TO RECOVER A BUDGET AMAZON ARMCHAIR

I’d been searching for a chair to fill a corner of the bedroom for ages, but no matter what price range I was looking in, I couldn’t find something I thought would work. Of course, I am a bit partial to a DIY, but if something costs quite a lot, I’m a bit more nervous to do one of my experiments on it. This chair below from Anthropologie has been my inspiration for the bedroom design, but is a tiny bit out of my price range.

Then I found an armchair on Amazon for around £60 (it’s no out of stock, but you can try this chair for similar), and thought it was budget friendly enough to try re-cover it myself. I’d found another H&M table cloth that matched my bed frame pattern but was slightly different, so ordered that and set to work.. want to see the result?

Just a heads up, if you want to do this yourself, you really should treat the fabric with flame retardent spray- upholstery fabrics would usually already be treated and this just ensures you’re all safe and sound. You can find some spray here.

The method is pretty simple - I took the chair apart and wrapped each piece like a present over the top, leaving the bottom exposed to be covered at the end with an extra bit of fabric, and stapling around. It took two pairs of hands and a lot of patience when it comes to the folds, especially using a striped fabric like this where I wanted a neat finish corners.

When it came to re-attaching the elements of the chair to put it back together, I just made small cuts to the fabric with really sharp scissors. The way the chair holds itself together, I know that this fabric doesn’t pose much risk of unravelling at these holes, and it’s a lot simpler than any other way I could think of to put it back together. I had already sanded and painted the arms with black satin wood and metal paint for that slightly glossy look.

Last job was to make a matching cushion from left over fabric. For an armchair, there’s something that feels luxuriously bespoke and expensive about a matching cushion, and I think it really finishes it off and highlights the intersecting stripes pattern.

All in all, this DIY cost under £100 including the tablecloths and the chair, so a fair way off the £1000 Anthropologie one. What do you think?

If you haven’t seen my bed frame makeover I did using the same technique, head here to see it.