Each room inside a family home is special for some reason. We love our bedrooms for their warmth and coziness, our home workstations for their inspirational effect on us, and we love our dining rooms, as this is where we enjoy our family meals and entertain our guests.
Since the dining room is where we celebrate many of our important moments and share enjoyable conversations, we want this room to look appealing for ourselves and our guests, and to create an inviting atmosphere for all the memorable events that will take place there.
One of the crucial elements for creating an appealing dining room is the dining chair. Regardless of whether you have wooden, metal, or other chairs, and whether they are vintage or modern, picking the right type of fabric for reupholstering your dining room chairs can be a 180-degree game changer when it comes to the image of your dining room.
But what is the best choice of material for reupholstering your dining room chairs? Does it have to be expensive? Which materials can take on both casual and elegant looks?
In this article, I’ll share with you everything I know about chair upholstering and advise you on which materials are best to use for this.
What to Want From Your Chair Upholstering Fabric?
Most people’s idea of what it means to do things around the house is to invest their time, money, and energy once, and then maintain this in the future.
And this is good logic – do you want to change your bathroom tiles every two or three years? When you buy a new wardrobe, you usually want it to last for at least 15 years.
The same logic applies to dining chairs and upholstering. What you want from the rest of your home, you will want of them too – to last a long time and be durable, be simple to clean and maintain, fit the rest of your home decor, be simple to combine with various temporary decorations, and have all that for a decent price.
Picking the right fabric for chair upholstering is important because it’s a major element to the look and feel of your room.. What you want to achieve in your dining may differ if you’re single, coupled, having one child, having many children, and having pets. So, there’s no one answer that would cover the needs of every person.
So, to find out what is the best choice for upholstering fabric for you, you first need to think about what you want to achieve. Do you have the conditions necessary for owning and maintaining highly luxurious upholstering, or would you prefer something that is practical and simple, but still looks good? How important is it for you that the upholstering is easy to clean from (animal) hair? Or, is maybe safety and simplicity your priority due to small children running around all the time?
Once you figure this out, you can move on to actually picking the right fabric for your dining room chair upholstering.
Best Fabrics for Reupholstering Dining Room Chairs
Finally, here are some recommendations for fabrics for reupholstering your dining room chairs. The right choice of reupholstering your chairs can enhance your room’s comfort, practicality, and style, plus it doesn’t have to cost you much.
Faux Suede
Faux suede is a synthetic type of fabric that feels like leather on the touch. There are many reasons why one should pick faux suede over real leather, such as harming no animal and paying a much lower price. Faux suede can be of very high quality and endurance, despite being “fake” and synthetic. It will likely take years before it starts wearing off.
What I strongly recommend if you decide to go for this fabric is to pick darker colors, because lighter ones can get stained and dirty quite easily, especially if a liquid is spilled on them. It’s also much easier to spot damage on lighter-colored faux suede than dark.
Another positive thing is that it’s simple to clean, as all it takes is to make a pass with a damp cloth.
Where to Buy Faux Suede?
My personal preference, as usual, is to order things online. So, I will now share some of my preferred amazon faux suede sellers.
Gotocut
Gotocut sells excellent quality upholstery faux suede that completely resembles capsized leather. You can purchase it per yard in a variety of colors that can easily be combined with almost any type of furniture.AOUXSEEM
Similar to the previous one, you can purchase this amazing, pastel-colored faux suede per yard.
The colors are a bit more eccentric but work great with bright and dark nuances of other furniture alike.
Plastex Fabric Shop
If you’re looking for something more suave, perhaps this brown color faux leather will come off as more attractive for you. The color looks very natural and elegant and is an excellent choice for homes with rather dark wooden furniture, however, it can be combined with black metal too. You can purchase this fabric per meter at Plastex fabric shop.
SY Fabrics
Here is another seller of excellent-quality faux suede sold per meter by SY Fabric. This one comes in a rather dark color nuance and can give your dining room a very elegant look.
Faux Suede Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
| Looks very posh and stylish | Light-colored are more difficult to maintain |
| Yet, wallet-friendly | More difficult to pair with urban home design, more suitable for a traditional type of elegance |
| Friendly for homes with pets and/or children – easy to clean |
Cotton
To be honest, I am a huge advocate of natural materials, especially if they are plant-based, such as cotton. Cotton itself is very strong and durable, so you can expect it to endure washing and friction for a very long time. Cotton blends can assure resistance to stains and wrinkling, as well as many years of usage.
In addition, cotton is easy to maintain, and some simple washing can help keep it looking brand-new, and in case of stains, there are chemicals you can use to get them out of cotton more easily.
Where to Buy Upholstering Cotton?
Unlike faux suede, cotton comes in many colors and patterns. There is so much to choose from! Here are some of the trusted Amazon sellers for upholstery cotton-per-meter.
Hemp Show
Hemp Show sells cotton fabric per meter of ideal thickness for any household project including dining room chair upholstery. The material is uni-colored and comes in a gray tone, so it looks quite neutral when combined with almost any type of furniture.Shason Textile
If you’re looking for some hype-elegance, you will love this colorful upholstering cotton fabric by Shason Textile. It comes for a great price, it’s very easy to maintain and doesn’t wear off quickly. Ideal for homes with simple, minimalist furniture, or urban interior design.
Newamishquilt
A mixture of cotton and polyester, this set of upholstering cotton fabric from Newamishtquilt will look great in a vintage-style home. The materials are colorful, yet simple, which may remind you of your grandma’s upholstering that she had in the 1960s.
Lunarable
For those of you who prefer gentle, modern tones in your home here’s one particularly beautiful piece of floral patterned digitally printed fabric. It looks amazing and can pass as both everyday casual upholstery, but if combined with other fancier decorations and furniture, it can look quite high-end.
Cotton Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
| Natural fabric, easy to wash and maintain | Bright colors may stain and wear off more easily |
| Many options to choose from – single-color, patterns, etc |
Tweed
When it comes to dining room upholstery, tweed is considered a classic. Some of its advantages are that it’s an extremely durable, natural type of fabric, it always looks beautiful, and never goes out of fashion. However, it requires regular maintenance in terms of vacuum cleaning or even applying detergent in case of stains.
If you’re choosing upholstery for a classical type of dining room, tweed should be your first choice, and it also goes well with a farmhouse-style home.
Where to Buy Tweed?
Tweed is quite affordable and easy to find online. You can choose between single-colored fabrics and patterned ones, though, it’s not very common to find complex patterns, like the ones you can see on cotton. When it comes to tweed, we are usually talking about simple patterns such as stripes or plaid.
Here are some of the finest tweed sellers that I’ve been ordering, from Amazon.
Richloom Classic
This is a you can purchase per meter. It combines well with almost any furniture color.
It looks very casual and you can count on its endurance and comfort, however, it’s not the most elegant choice for upholstery, so you should think through what your needs are before choosing.
Magnolia Home
Simple, beige, single-colored tweed fabric made of 100% cotton. If you’re looking for good-quality tweed that can pass off as both stylish and casual, this one should be the right pick.Premier Prints
If you’re rather a fan of tinner fabrics, this is a single-colored light gray piece of tweed fabric composed of 100% linen. Similar to the previous one, it can pass off as both stylish and everyday casual dining upholstery.
Tweed Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
| Good looking, never gets old | Requires regular maintenance and cleaning |
| Natural, enduring material |
Vinyl
If you’re searching for fabric that is heat and sun resistant, takes a while to fade and wear off, that’s easy to clean and maintain, and is super-friendly for your pocket, then definitely pick vinyl.
It looks very similar to leather, however, no animals are being harmed in the process of making it.
You can find it in textures that resemble leather, such as ornate designs, woven, or plain single-color ones.
Here are some of the top vinyl sellers from Amazon.
US Auto
If you’re looking for something more serious and elegant, perhaps this black leather piece of vinyl will properly meet your needs. In my opinion, it’s best combined with wooden furniture, but it can work with other materials as well.
It’s easy to clean and doesn’t wear and tear easily.
TORRAMI
Another stylish piece of vinyl fabric is this black, single-colored, patterned piece of vinyl fabric you can purchase per meter. The material is a mixture of vinyl, fake fur, and synthetic. Super-easy to maintain and combines well with both wooden and metal furniture.
ZIIYAN
If you’re looking for a more colorful vinyl solution, check out this colorful offer by ZIIYAN.
Closing Words
I know, choosing upholstery is quite demanding, as you want it to last a long time. It needs to fit well with the rest of your furniture and chair frame color, but you also want it to look good for different types of events that may take place in your dining room.
It’s important to keep in mind that your upholstery fabric should be durable and easy to maintain, especially if you have small children and pets – you don’t want to find yourself cleaning your chairs with detergent after every meal or children’s play in the dining room.
Luckily, thanks to the perks of online shopping and ordering products from everywhere in the world, you can choose from a wide array of options I’ve listed above.
Last update on 2024-04-23 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
