Reupholster a Seat for a Mid-Century Style Chair

When the transition to remote work from home happened at the start of the pandemic, I was unprepared for what it meant that I would be adjusting to a new environment of spending more time in front of a screen and becoming constantly distracted by my own mess and surroundings.

I took fewer breaks because I didn’t have the natural disruption of teammates, meetings, and casual conversation. My posture slumped forward as I didn’t have the same office “luxuries” of cushioned padded seating and tables with the perfect height. My research led me to a conclusion of investing in a Herman Miller chair with all the bells and whistles that I was not quite ready to make the leap for just yet.

I should have known that folding chairs are the worst.

Instead, I had access to a lightly padded folding chair that belonged to a mahjong table set that my family no longer really used, so it was quickly employed as the next best thing other than nothing. But after an hour of sitting in it, I felt my butt cheeks go numb with tenderness and found more excuses to do other small things around the home until the blood flowed back through my body properly before sitting down again.

The next move in the interim of making a deep dive Herman Miller investment was to get a padded cushion to place on top of the folding chair. Social media gods must have read my mind (or used an algorithm to hear me complain) that I needed help and placed an ad for the best thing to save my tail at the perfect time. A Casper seat cushion for the win! I found the best option which seems to have been made for long-haul truck drivers and gamers (to which I’m not either of type) and figured if it was good enough for them, it’s good enough for me.

After a long two-week wait for the cushion to arrive in the mail, I was thrilled to give myself the gift of an improved seating condition. I lasted for at least 4 hours (though not extremely healthy anyway) and didn’t feel as much of a tingle in the back from constantly having to shift my weight back and forth. But! There still was a problem. Anytime I had to get up from the chair and the cushion, it slipped further forward or backward, which meant that I constantly had to re-adjust it before sitting back down again.

The hunt was serious for the elusive mid-century modern piece.

The battle for a clean and organized workspace has been one I’ve waged day after day. I wanted to find more ways to make my workspace more sophisticated in a way that made me more excited about showing up to work every day. Making small tweaks like donating old supplies, tossing out papers, consolidating art bins, and improving my system of accessing things became an obsession. The biggest thing that really kept avoiding was really improving this seating situation. 

I had fallen in love with mid-century modern design and often ogled over the beautiful pieces that my local vintage stores were offering up. I recently go upset one day when I couldn’t close my IKEA dresser and ended up breaking one of the boards. It was then that I decided to make future investments in furniture that would last over time in style and materials. So maybe, I would start small. 

I could start with a chair.

I opened up my Craigslist app for days and weeks at a time, on a bloodhound hunt for a simple chair that I could elevate my workspace with. There were so many beautiful options to choose from but also knew that if there was a need to reupholster it, I’d have to be able to handle the project on my own. My lucky day arrived when I found a single chair owned by an elderly couple that was moving out of their home, and for only $20.

Though she was not branded as a beauty from Denmark, I thought this chair stood out for its back shape and smooth hole punch in the middle. It was made of solid wood, had a simple construction, and would be perfect to try out some self-taught upholstery skills as a fun project.

The task was an investment in the beauty of simplicity.

Materials: high-density foam, serrated knife, upholstery fabric, staple gun, staple puller, cotton batting, screwdriver/flathead, scissors