Swivel arm chair reupholster DIY

As you know I'm in the process of putting together Koda's nursery. I'm doing as much of it myself as I can. We have an old arm chair that was a hand-me-down from my in laws. I love the chair but the burnt red color just doesn't go with our gray and nave colored nursery. I've been wanting to redo it for a long time and now I have an excuse! I did a lot of Pinterest research on reupholster to before starting and a couch redo was the best tutorial I found. You can check it out if you'd like here.

It was very detailed step by step and really helped me out. As every chair is different I thought I'd post my chair for anyone that it may help. So here is the chair before (minus the seat cushion because I forgot to put it back on for the picture).

I had to figure out where to start and also check that the main construction of the chair was still useable. After looking underneath I found everything was in good condition and that the very back was the best starting point.

I undid the staples in the bottom all the way around so that I wouldn't have to keep flipping it over.

I then found that the sides and top of the back were held down by tack strips which I saved to reuse because they were still in good condition. You should be able to find these at Joanns if you cannot reuse yours. 

I then I did the staples along the back from the material in the front of the chair.

From here I had a hard time figuring out where I could go next. The back cushion was seen between two pieces of material and then I realized I had to take the arms completely off to undo them. I found a screw on the side and front of the chair hat held the arms in place. 

From there I also had to detach the top part of the armrest from the bottom and then take off the material. 

I had to pull back the material on the side of the armrest to find the screw to detach the top. 

I then got to work on detaching the back cushion and material for the bottom of the chair. In this process I found that the back cushion was completely crumbled so I would need a new one. This process was easy you just have to follow the staples. 

This is the back side material that the cushion is seen between. 

It was attached in the rear bottom of the chair as well. 

The last piece to come off was the bottom material. 

Once it was apart I used the pieces as patterns for the new material.

So basically you have to unstitch everything, cut the new pieces, and stitch where needed. Anything and everything you can reuse I would. I reused my tack strips, the seat cushion (I did cover it with batting to add some more fluff), and the piping. This was the second reupholster this chair has had and some of the original green material was left on, which I decided to leave as well. Then you have to start putting things back together. I did not get the material for my piping and buttons right away because I wanted to use a different color so I started with the things that didn't need the piping. First I did the armrests and left them apart so I could attach the piping.

I then did the seat bottom as it needed no piping. 

Once I got the piping material I finished the armrests. 

(Terrible lighting but you scan see some of the green material that I left and it will be covered once reattached)

I then unstitched, cut and re stitched the new material for the seat back and cushion while I waited for my new seat back cushion to arrive. 

Once I had the back cushion I cut it to size and attached the material over it on the chair. 

After I stapled that on I attached the arm rests and buttons. (At this point I found that I had forgotten how the armrests attached and stapled material over the screw holes. I had to undo staples and then redo them once the armrests were attached) 

I then put the back on and found that my tach strips were more worn than I realized. I will eventually replace them so that the back sits tighter. 

I then only had to put the cushion to sit on together which I covered in batting instead of buying a whole new cushion. 

And there you go! It's finished. I'm still deciding whether I should put a skirt at the bottom but it definitely works for now!