How To Recover Retro Dining Chairs

1. Dismantle Your Retro Dining Chairs

   Start by removing the cushions from the frame. There are four screws in the back and 4 in the seat on these chairs, but your chairs may be different.
   Remove the eight screws holding the cushions to the frame.
   
   
   You will need the screws later, so put them someplace safe.
   
   Put the screws someplace where they won’t get lost.
   
   Next, remove all of the staples holding the vinyl to the base. It’s tedious but necessary. A screwdriver and pliers are all you need to get out all the staples.
   Remove staples with a flat screwdriver and pliers.

2. Separate Your Old Retro Dining Chair Vinyl Pieces

   Separate the vinyl pieces to use them as templates for the new vinyl. Work your way around the piece cutting the thread with scissors or a seam ripper. But be careful because vinyl is thick, and so is the upholstery thread used to stitch it together. Bonnie broke all of her seam rippers taking apart these chairs, so be careful.
   Cut the thread along each seam, with scissors or a seam ripper.
   
   You’ll reuse the welting, so set it aside for now.
   Save this welting cord to reuse

3. Make Templates For Your New Vinyl Pieces

   Start by laying each piece out on butcher paper and trace around the outside.
   
   Make notes about the size, orientation, and cuts because things can get confusing when we transfer our templates to the new vinyl later. When tracing the old pieces, make the template slightly bigger than the material to allow for movement in the vinyl after the chair is reassembled. 
   Trace around each of your vinyl pieces onto a piece of paper.
   
   The old boxing and welting material is too deformed to trace accurately, so use it only as a guideline.
   The old welting and boxing material is too deformed to trace accurately.
   
   You can use them to get the length you need and the approximate width, but don’t try to trace them onto the paper.
   Use the old boxing and welting as a guideline for the length and width only. Don’t try to trace it.
   

4. Cut Out Your Retro Dining Chair Templates.

   
   Now you can lay out your patterns. Roll out the new vinyl and trace your templates with a charcoal pencil.
   
   Alternatively, you can trace the old vinyl pieces directly. When you finish tracing your templates cut out your new vinyl pieces.
   Trace your paper template onto your new vinyl.

5. Sewing The Front Seat Back Panel

   Staple the foam to the front seatback panel. This will hold it in place as you pass the panel through the machine.
   Staple the foam insert to the vinyl.
   
   Follow along the lines in the foam.
   Sew along the lines in the foam.
   
   This will create straight lines down the front of the panel, which is part of the style and charm of retro dining chairs, so it’s essential to get this part right. The vertical stitching will keep the material tight to the chair’s back. Without it, there would be a gap between the foam and the vinyl, and it would puff out.
   Follow the lines in the foam to create these lines in the seat back.
   
   Repeat the process for all of the stitching lines. Now remove the staples. Next, sew the welting. Start by wrapping the cord with the vinyl and pinning it with a couple of pins towards the end.
   Insert a pin into the vinyl welting and seat panel to hold it together while sewing together.
   
   You’re sewing everything inside out, so lay your pieces out accordingly. When you attach the back panel, the welting will be folded over, so pin it with the open side facing out.
   Layout and pin your panels inside out.
   
   Be careful as you sew the welting to the front panel because you don’t want to sew the edge of the foam to the vinyl. Pin it only with a couple of pins at this point because the welting must stretch as you go around the corners.
   
   Go slow and make sure everything stays lined up and the piping stays inside.
   Sew the welting to the seatback panel.
   
   

6. Sewing The Back Seat Back Panel

   Pin the back panel at the bottom two corners and the center of the top seam. As you sew around the edge, these pins keep the back panel from moving off-center. The hard part here is staying straight as you move down the seam. The welting makes a little ridge that creates a balancing act. If you fall off the edge, the seam won’t be straight. It’s ok, though, because all of this stitching is hidden when your retro dining chairs are finished.
   
   Now go around the whole thing again, following the welting to tighten your seam. Make minor cuts in the vinyl along the curved portions without cutting into the stitching. This makes the material more flexible when it’s turned right side out. Set this vinyl aside for now.

7. Sewing The Seat

   Sew boxing to seat panel.
   
   Because you can’t hide the box seam, you want to make it as even as possible at the back of the panel. Then go all the way around and attach the ends in the middle. Sometimes the way you cut out the material causes the piece to stretch more to one side than the other, and so you end up with more welting material at one end than the other, so make sure the cord does not come all the way to the end of the vinyl. And just like before, we pin the welting with the opening facing out.
   
   Overlap the two ends of the welting, and start the locking stitch about an inch and a half from the end. Line up the edges of the pieces and then move along the edge of the cord. Move slowly, keeping everything lined up edge to edge as you go. Before you get to the end, cut away the excess cord.
   Cut the excess welting cord before you finish sewing.
   
   Fold one end of the welting into itself and lay the other end on top. Then staple the seam to hold it together while you sew it.
   Fold the ends of the welting and overlap the two ends onto each other.
   
   Don’t stitch the end of the boxing. Fold it over as you did with the welting. Now fold over one end of the boxing and staple it. Lay the other end over the folded end and pin it. Finish the seam, remove the pin, and go around the whole thing again to tighten the seam.
   Fold the end of the seat boxing over and staple it.
   

8. Covering The Cushions

   Use scissors to make cuts in the corners.
   The cuts will make the vinyl easier to bend when you turn it right side out.
   
   Working in small sections, staple the vinyl to the seat bottom of your retro dining chair. Pull the material tight from the other side and staple it. Working your way around the whole seat, pull and staple until there is no slack left.
   Fold the seat panel over the base, pulling it tight and stapling it in place.
   
   Then cut out the excess material and tack down the loose bits.
   Cut out the excess material.
   
   Same idea with the seatback. Pull the back panel tight and staple it down.
   Staple the vinyl to the bottom of the seat back.
   
   Then cut out the excess material from the back panel, fold over the front panel, and staple it over the edge of the back panel.  
   Cut out the excess material.

9. Clean the Chair Frames

   
   You could re-chrome the chair frames if you wanted to make them brand new again. But you will have to outsource if you don’t have the equipment required. Or, you can just clean the rust off of them. Most of the rust is on the surface anyway, and so it is easily removed.
   
   I used Bar Keepers Friend and a wet sponge to scrub the rust off of our retro dining chairs. Gently scrub chair frames with Bar Keepers Friend.
   Rinse off the Bar Keepers friend.
   
   After a rinse, I used Never Dull to remove rust and polish the chrome. Then I wiped the whole thing down with a clean towel. This process removes most of the rust, but it doesn’t get all. You could remove it all if you wanted to spend the time, but this will all be covered anyway.
   
   Be careful with the Bar Keepers Friend. It is abrasive and it can remove the chrome plating.
   Wipe the whole frame down with Never Dull.
   

10. Put Your Retro Dining Chairs Back Together

    
    The seat is straightforward. It just has the four screws, but the back is a little more complicated though, but I have a trick to find the screw holes through the vinyl. To find the indentations from the chair cushion, feel along them until you find the four puckered screw holes.
    
    So now that you’ve found the first screw hole, You can use an awl or an ice pick to poke a hole in the vinyl over the screw hole. Repeat this process on one hole on the opposite side. Now start the first screw but don’t tighten it down all the way.
    
    Insert the second screw and tighten it down. Move back to the first screw and tighten it down all the way.
    
    Now use the icepick to easily start the other two holes and install the two screws.
    Feel the indentations in the foam to find the old screw holes.
    
    .