DIY Dining Chair Slipcovers

I’m not a seamstress, and I have actually never taken a sewing class, but guess what?  I made some DIY dining chair slipcovers!! If I can do it, so can you! I’m gonna share with you the tutorials I followed, and the steps I took to create some really simple, and really stylish dining chair slipcovers.

Do you ever have one of those moments where you take a look at one of your rooms or pieces of furniture, and feel like you are seeing it for the first time with an entirely new perspective?  We have some perfectly good Ethan Allen dining room chairs that we bought about 15 years ago, and the other day I took a look at them and thought, “I don’t really like the look of them anymore.”

But, it’s not really in our budget right now to replace all of them, so I thought…dining chair slipcovers!

But alas, there weren’t any dining chair slipcovers I could find online that would fit the dimensions of our chairs (within my budget).  So, I thought…make your own!

Tutorials

I searched online and found a few great tutorials that I used to educate myself before diving in. Now, please remember that I hardly know anything about sewing.  I do own a sewing machine, however, and I have no fear of trying something new.  So, if I can do it, so can you!

Here are some of the tutorials I used:

http://www.hgtv.com/design/make-and-celebrate/handmade/how-to-make-a-custom-dining-chair-slipcover

Ana White’s Easiest Parson Chair Slipcovers

Home Made Simple YouTube Video:

Materials

I took a trip to the fabric store and chose a simple linen fabric that was on sale. Linen has a beautiful look, but is very wrinkly, so you might want to consider something else if that bothers you. The other thing I wanted to do is create the look of a padded back chair, so I bought some 1-inch foam that I cut to size to lay over the chair backs.

Making the Slipcovers

I followed the tutorials to create the back and seat portion of the slipcovers.  The tutorials were fantastic, and my slipcovers turned out great. I also wanted to make a very simple skirt for my slipcovered chairs, so I cut a long strip of material to create a 6″ skirt with a kick pleat (I learned that term from the tutorials!).

And here is the finished chair slipcover. It fits like a glove! Thank goodness for online tutorials!

I’m so happy with the way they turned out. Not only do they look like completely new chairs, but they only cost me about $50 total for the fabric and foam!  I didn’t cover the two end chairs (with arm rests)…my plan is to purchase two new wingback chairs in a gray color to replace them.  But that’s a topic for a future post…