Outdoor Chair Cushions {Tutorial}

Two years ago {yes they have looked sad for two years} I purchased two identical outside patio chairs at a small antique shop in Laguna Beach. I love them but the cushions have looked sad since the day I purchased them and I was never motivated to recover them until Drew commented on how bad they looked. You know something looks really bad when your husband starts to comment. So here is my best explanation on how I did them {and I think photos always help}.

Here is what you'll need:

1. Chair seat base {hopefully your chair came with a seat}

2. Quilt batting or foam

3. Fabric for outside of chair seat

4. Staple Gun

5. Scissors

1. Cut current cover off chair cushion

2. Trim any excess cover around the outside of the cushion

3. Cut batting 2 inches larger than bottom of chair and using staple gun, staple batting to bottom of chair cushion. I used quilt batting as my chairs already had foam. If yours are just wood you may want to consider adding foam instead of batting. Both can be purchased at JoAnn's.

4. Measure and cut material for the outside of the cushion. I used table cloth fabric so I could wipe off anything that fell on the chairs. Also it would wick away any water as they are always outside. It was kind of hard to find the fabric. I went to JoAnn's and they had your average picnic table red and white check but I wasn't quite into that. I ended up finding it at a speciality grocery store on Balboa Island but I'm sure you can find it online. It was $9.99/yard and I purchased 2/3 yard.

5. Using staple gun, staple fabric to bottom of chair. I worked my way around in a circle which ended up working well.

6. This is what you will have when you are done. Go around and re-staple any areas that you feel need to be pulled tighter.

7. Trim excess batting/fabric around middle.

8. There you are, your finished cushion.

And here is what they look like finished:

And a random note:

Remember how I vowed to read the newspaper for 30 days? Well, what I didn't tell you was that I currently only subscribed to the OC Register Thursday-Sunday. Well yesterday someone called from the Register and said that as I have been a loyal customer they are going to give me Monday-Wednesday for free! I thought that was pretty opportune timing!