DIY: Reupholster an Old Bench Seat with Faux Fur

I see a lot of people talk about how hard it is to work with faux fur. And, while I HATE dealing with the excess fur that ends up EVERYWHERE when I’m working on a fur project, fur is really not that hard to work with.

I purchased some faux fur fabric from Hancock Fabrics a few months back and wanted to make some pillows out of it. Then, I realized I wanted to cover on old bench seat that I’d previously upholstered with one of my floral fabrics (you can see the fabric and the pillows I make with it in my pillow shop on Etsy).

First, find  a bench that you can work with and detach the seat from the legs. You should be able to remove the screws with a screwdriver. Once you’ve removed the seat, you’ll should remove any fabric attached and replace the foam, if needed. I had already done this when I previously upholstered the bench, so I don’t have photos.

You’ll need faux fur fabric, a staple gun, and a bench to upholster.

Step 1: Put your bench seat onto the faux fur (upside down). Make sure you have at least 3 inches of fur on each side before you start cutting.

 

Step 2: Cut your excess fur (not access – DOH – sorry for the typo in the image) from around the seat, making sure you have at least 3 inches on each side. Only cut the faux fur backing (not the fur)! This insures that you won’t have a bunch of fur flying all over the place. If you cut all the way through to the fur, you’ll make a mess. I made this mistake once and was finding this stuff everywhere!!

Step 3: Now you can go around the raw edges of the fur and pull the loose pieces off.

This is what it looks like once you’ve cut the fur down to size and removed the loose pieces.

 

Step 4: Start at the middle of one of the long sides and staple along the end until you get close to the corner (stop stapling about 2 inches away from the corner). Then, do the other half of this long side, remembering to pull the fabric tight as you staple.

Above is both long sides stapled down.

Step 5: At the short ends, start stapling at the middle just like you did for the long sides. Stop stapling about 3 inches away from the corner.

Step 6: Cut off all of the extra fur in the corners. It’s extremely important to do this, because if not, your fur will lay very thick and you’ll have a hard time attaching the seat to the legs.

Step 7: Once you’ve cut off the extra fur, staple the corners down. Then, attach the seat the legs and voila…

 

When I bought this fur fabric, I didn’t even realize that there was this diamond pattern on it. I am in LOVE!!

 

 

See how easy that was? You’ll need to make sure that your fur is pulled tight while you stretching and stapling, so it doesn’t appear lumpy.

I LOVE how mine turned out. I was thinking about spray painting the legs black, but so glad I decided against it. The gray fur looks great against the white legs.

The bench will go underneath my wall shelves that you’ll see in my living room reveal later this month.

So, what do you think of the bench? Do you think I should spray-paint the legs? Or leave them white? Let me know in the comment section.

Till next time,

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