Ikea computer chair: Handmade cover renovation hack

Renovating this Ikea computer chair was such a fun project. I love that I got to make it completely custom and select the print that I had around the craft room. And while this is a computer chair, I selected it because I do sometimes have super long sessions of sewing in front of my machine.

When I started working on my new sewing room, I immediately started looking for a chair to use with my build-in table, I wanted something comfortable that allowed me to move and that would not be a pain to sit on if I needed to sew for a long period of time.

After some research I found the perfect one in the Ikea website, the SKRUVSTA chair.

Sadly it was WAY out of my “office renovation” budget, so I hunted on Craigslist until I found the almost-exact-one I wanted for just $30.00 – SCORE!

I definitely wanted the wheels that the more expensive version of this chair has, so on our last trip to Ikea I got the set of 5 wheels for $9.00 to make the total for the brand-new chair a low $39.00 compared to the $149.00 retail price of the leather version.

I already had fabric and foam to give this very dirty found a brand-new look =] I love how comfortable it is!

If you saw the revamp I gave my office chair, you already know that one of the most important factors when recovering a chair to me is making the cover removable. Because well, I have a little dog that loves chairs and going outside – not a good mix!

The process to recover the Ikea computer chair

So in order to make the covers removable, because of the shape of the chair, I decided to add 2 zippers, one on the back and one on the front-bottom part. The original chair was in a very decent shape, it was just dirty and the only really bad part was the foam of the cushion.

I basically pull the covers apart as carefully as I could (I could not believe how many staples this thing had!) with the help of Ken because at one point the staples got insanely hard to get (or it could have been my pregnant butt crying for help hehe)

After that I carefully rip all the pieces that covered the chair apart, to place them back together again with tape and cover all the little “holes” in the pattern with paper, that helped me create the perfect pattern to make the cover for the chair. After I cut my pattern I saw it together and fit it, then alter whatever parts needed some adjusting and sew again, repeat until the cover fit like a glove!

The cushion of the chair was in pretty bad shape (if you can see a but crack is time to toss away!) so I decided to replace the whole thing, but since I was kind of overfitting and sewing I decided to go the lazy way and only cover one side, after all, I will be the only one using it hehe!

The part that I love the most about the chair is the back, funny because usually, I tent to hide zippers as much as possible, but in this case, I think it gives it character =]

Here a more detailed view of how I resolved the bottom and back of the chair to make it completely removable, so I can wash it easily whenever it gets dirty.

I also added elastic on both sides of the zippers so that the bottom will fit better, it just makes the zippers come together much better than without it.

So here once again the before and after =]

I hope this inspires some of you to not give up on the chair you want just because it's out of your budget! I Love Craiglist and whenever I find something I really like I search every day until I get a lucky post, I guess you just have to be very patient.

Do you have other tips on recovering a chair? Want to share!?

I hope you all have a lovely day!