Upholstery Secrets

Featured Pro: Kelly Edwards
Category: Home Décor
Time: 4:17


KELLY EDWARDS: Hi. I’m Kelly Edwards, and this is my GMC Trade Secret.

Now, anyone can go out and have a piece of furniture reupholstered, but you can certainly do it yourself like the pros if you just know a couple of these secrets I’m about to show you.

And the first thing I want to tell you about is the fact that the right tool can make all the difference in the world, especially when you’re covering something like this bar stool.

Now, you want to use a high-quality air-compressor staple gun like this one, because it’s got a lot of force and it’ll go through the fabric as well as through the wood.

Now, this little hand stapler here is great for craft projects but not for these big upholstery projects, because you can definitely press down on it and it will slip right off your fabric.

So I’m going to show you how to reupholster this bar stool using this vinyl here. And what I’ve done is I’ve just cut it a little bit bigger than the circumference of the bar stool. That way I can fold it over and then cut off any excess.

So you want to start by taking the four corners and stapling those first. So I’ll do this back one, and then I’ll just work my way around.

Okay, so now that I have this back one done, now I’m going to do the opposite side. So I’m going to flip it around and I’m going to do this side. Now I can go over here. And then I’ll finish up with this one.

Okay, so now that I have each of my four corners done, now I need to work my way around. And the trick to doing this, because this is a circle, is that you want to take your index finger and your thumb and you want to pinch the fabric and pull it back. And then you want to shoot it in. And this is going to ensure that you don’t have any ripples in the ends here.

All right, now that my staples are all the way around, I’m going to trim off the excess. Okay, so I think I’m done trimming the edges here. And I can always go back with a razor blade and clean it up even more, or even add a piece of fabric to the bottom, which will cover up all the staples.

So this thing looks so cool. And what’s cool about this too is that, whereas my style changes, I can certainly grab another piece of vinyl and reupholster it with a different color.

So now I have a secret for covering a couch cushion that will save you so much trouble and headache, you won’t even believe it, because we all know how intimidating it would be to cover a couch cushion. But it’s actually quite easy.

So what you need here is you need a couch cushion, and then you need three pieces of fabric. You need your top piece of fabric, your bottom piece of fabric, and then a piece of fabric that’s going to go around all your sides. So you want your top piece and your bottom piece, and then you want to lie them down so that the pattern side is facing the cushion. And then you want to take your outside piece and just wrap it all the way around.

Now, you want to grab your sewing needles and you want to pinch your fabric. So what you want to do is you want to take your top piece and your side piece, and you just want to pinch it together like so. And then you want to take your sewing pins and you just want to pin it together, working your way all the way down.

Okay, so I’ve just pinned all the way around here. And the cool thing about this is that I’m using my existing couch cushion as my mold. So, for instance, if you have a scalloped couch cushion, all you need to do is follow it all the way around and it’ll be a perfect fit.

Now, I’ve left this opening here, and this is going to allow me to slip my cushion out, then take my sewing machine and just sew all the way around these edges. And then I can just slip it back on and then hand-sew it. And ultimately I get this – a perfect fit for my couch cushions.

I’m Kelly Edwards, and this is my GMC Trade Secret. Now, go on out and tackle your own upholstery project.