Broken Barstool Upgrade (Leather Edition!)

Hello fellow makers!

Recently I found myself in quite the predicament. My favorite seat for the shop is crumbling, and has been a trusty companion for years now. It was a cheap bar stool from my first apartment, but finally his weak fiberboard base has given out. I tried swapping seats, but other seats just don't have the same feel. The matching stools belong in the kitchen, and my other seats can't spin, what fun is that? So I just continued to sit on this broken stool, and as more and more of the seat broke away under me, chips and fibers falling all over the floor, Instructables came to the rescue with a fix it challenge! So stool havers young and old rejoice, because today we're ending the procrastination and bringing those trusty seats back to life!

Supplies

Before we begin, let's get together all of the things we will need for the project. No sense in running about looking for materials while we're trying to get things done!

Components:

A stool. Broken or not. Spinning or not. It doesn't even need to have upholstery, we can upgrade those hard wooden seats now!
Foam. You can really use whatever you have on hand, or whatever you feel is the best for your budget and your bottom. EVA, camp pads, the old foam from your stool, or a combination of it all!
Upholstery. Leather, cloth, or even salvage the old covering if you want!
New seat material. I used a bit of leftover 1/2" plywood, but you can use any thickness that you'd like, or even make your own seat from other materials.

Tools:

Drill. You'll need this to make pilot holes in the new seat. Not strictly necessary if you don't have one available, but it is nice to have.
Screwdriver. For disassembling your stool, and installing your brand new seat.
Glue. This is optional. For holding your foam centered on the seat itself, which is just convenient if you plan on moving your project around or don't have time to finish in one sitting.
Pen or pencil. Gotta mark those cuts somehow!
Measuring tool. This can be a ruler, yard stick, measuring tape, or even a bit of string in a pinch.
Box cutter. I prefer the snap off blades, but you can use whatever type of razor you prefer.
Pliers. For pulling out staples, make sure they're sturdy enough.
Staple gun. Any quality, I actually used a cheap Harbor Freight one then swapped to a different one for the second round of staples.
You'll need one set that will stand out enough to remove them easily with pliers unless your stapler has adjustable pressure settings. These can be substituted with small nails if you'd like.
Hammer. For bonking in those few pesky staples and flattening the upholstery folds.
A bit of string. This can be replaced by a circle compass if you're fancy.
Saw. A Jig saw is perfect for this job, or a band saw if you have one. A hand saw will work in a pinch, god help you.
Sand paper/ Belt Sander. If you haven't got a powered sander or your arms hurt from the hand saw I'll show how to get by without any sanding at all. Just watch out for splinters.
Safety gear. If you're using power tools make sure you have a respirator and goggles, it's really hard to get more lungs or eyes. Make sure you've got safety gloves also while using any of the tools here.

Step 1: Remove Your Broken Seat

Time to get started! Flip that bad boy over and see what you're working with. This stool had just these four screws to pop out and the seat came right off. Luckily for me, mine has a handy orange sticker so I can remember which side of the stool to sit on.

Step 2: Remove the Old Upholstery

Now with the legs gone, I just pulled up the black felt and now you can see the staples holding down the upholstery more clearly. If you choose to salvage your seat base of upholstery, use the pliers to pull out these staples and disassemble your seat. Set aside any bits you'd like to keep now. As you can see, this stool is utterly destroyed so I just tore off the covering and saved the foam for reuse later in the project.

Step 3: Measure the Old Seat Base

Now it's time to measure the size of your seat's base if your old one couldn't be saved. Measure the full diameter of the seat, and measure the distance of the holes for attaching it back to your stool's legs. In this case the original diameter of the stool is 14 inches, and the distance from the center to the holes is about 3.5 inches.

Step 4: Create a New, Sturdier Base

Now it's time to grab your base material and get marking! The material I had on hand was some 1/2 inch plywood. Fisrt, you'll want to measure your piece and mark out a square the same size you're cutting your seat to. Then we're going to mark lines from opposite corners to find the center of the square. To make this into a circle, get your bit of string and hold it in the center you just marked, I used a screw to hold it but a finger will work just fine. Mark your string with 1/2 of the size of your circle, and tie your pencil/pen to your string here! If your string is thick enough like mine, you can just poke your writing implement through and save yourself some time. Finally, pull the string tight and swivel it around the center, marking out the circle for your new seat! We'll cut this out later on.

Now I know what you're thinking; "But didn't you say that your stool was 14 inches in diameter? This new piece is only 12inches wide!". This is true, but as long as the new base material is big enough to attach to your legs properly feel free to adjust the size up or down to suit your preference (or your scrap pile). They're your buns after all, don't let anyone tell you what they can and can't fit on!

Step 5: Mark and Drill Attachment Holes

With our brand new circle drawn, we can now mark where the screws will go. my old seat base's holes went all the way through the material AND had a hole in the center. I just placed the center fragment of the old base on the new one and lined it up, marking the four holes on the base of the board. If you aren't so lucky, just measure out from the center mark using the measurements we took in step 3. If you're drilling pilot holes for your screws, do that now and definitely don't forget until you've already finished the project.

Step 6: Cut Out the Seat Base

We've finally made it to the part where you'll feel like you're getting things done! Grab your newly marked (and hopefully drilled) seat pattern and take that baby somewhere you can cut it out. Equip your safety gear if you don't like woodchips in your eyes and coughing up dust clouds. You should really wear gloves now too if you like your fingers more than I do. Now plug in your jig saws, power up the band saw, or do some thorough stretches to warm up your sawing arm, it's time to make some saw dust. nothing too complex here, just remember to saw on the outside of the line you drew of your seat will be ever so slightly smaller than you intended.

Step 7: Round Out the Form

This step is completely optional, but this stool is special to me so it demands internal perfection. If you're in a hurry and tiny internal imperfections won't bother you, skip directly to step 9, and seriously consider step 11. If not, then get out the sand paper or the belt sander, and smooth those wobbly edges to a nice perfect curve.

Step 8: Smooth Your Seat's Corners

Also an optional step, as the foam will wrap around any sharp corners. Grabbing that sand paper and knocking down any harsh corners will help ease the wear on your foam later on. doing this will also really help keep those splinters out of your hands later on too.

Step 9: Get Approval From Shop Cat

Finally back to a step that is vital to the stool making process. Shop cat demands the only the highest quality goods, so make sure to let him inspect your work in case you've missed any details.

Step 10: Gather and Plan Out Your Foam Layers

Time for some fun with foam! I grabbed a few different types of foam I had laying about in the closet for this, but brand new foam works just as well. I have the remainder of a cheap 1/2" camp pad (dark blue) for a bottom layer, with a much softer 1/2" green upholstery foam over that. The reasoning behind the dual foam is that with use, your padding will break down and deflate. This way even after I've squished the life out of the less durable upholstery foam years from now, the camp padding will still have a comfy enough give to it. Feel free to skip the camp pad and add just upholstery foam, add more layers, or customize the padding in any way you'd like. If you're using a sturdy foam like EVA of camp pads like I did though, make sure you have a softer layer of foam on top. Even just the old padding will work for the top layer. Have fun and make the seat as fat and plush as you'd like!

Step 11: Cut Edge Pad From Foam + Attach

If you skipped sanding your base, welcome to your easier step. If not feel free to do this as well if you'd like to make your stool appear a bit bigger and rounder (perhaps you cut a seat smaller than the original), but it is completely optional either way.

In any case, on to the directions! First off you'll need to measure the circumference of your circle. To do this, mark a start point and roll it along your measuring stick, use a measuring tape, or wrap around the edge with string and measure the length it took. Cut a strip a few inches longer than you need, and a bit thicker than the thickness of your board. I cut a 40 inch strip for mine, and it wrapped around with some material to space for a tight fit. Grab some glue, I used hot glue, and begin to glue it to the edge every few inches. There's no need to glue the whole length since this will be held on hard later by the upholstery. You only need enough glue for it to not come off. Do this all on a solid surface to make sure one side is flush. When you get back to where you started, move the foam to the edge of the start point and cut it at a right angle to your current end from the corner of the start point as shown. Glue that down, then flip over the seat. take your boxcutter, remove the blade, and lay it flat on the board. Using a gentle sawing motion, carefully cut the foam flush with the board and you're ready to move on!

Step 12: Measure Out Your Foam Pads

Now it's time for everyone's favorite part; MORE measurements!

IMPORTANT: any firm foams (EVA, camp pads, floor mats, anything that isn't extra squishy) should be cut to the same size as your seat base, and considered effectively part of the wood for this step.

ALSO IMPORTANT: If you hate math feel free to skip to the cheater part.

Marking the foam layers is very simple, all you need to know is that each layer of foam needs to be the thickness of your base piece larger than your base. So if I have a 10" seat that is 1" thick (1/2" wood+ 1/2" Hard foam) I will need a 12" foam circle. You'll need to adjust this a bit if you're using SUPER thick padding (1 1/2 inches or more), but you basically just want to be able to wrap your foam around the edge of your hard base to the bottom corner. For my layers, I have a layer of hard padding+ an edge piece making it about 13" x 1" total. The green upholstery foam is 1/2" thick, and needs to be cut to have an inch border on both sides, so take half the diameter (the radius) plus 1". That gives us 6 1/2"+1"=7 1/2". Now none of this needs to be super precise, so you can do another string based circle on the foam like we did earlier, OR you can cheat. Grab a small object around the extra thickness you need, in this case 1 inch. Use your pen, press your 1" object between it and your seat, and trace your circle. I used a small deck of cards for a game, as we all know cheating makes things easier. Now if you add a second layer as I did, follow the same steps as before, either by measuring and drawing your circle with string, or by cheating and tracing it again (Total thickness+diameter of base. Don't forget the pad you just added!) . The second soft foam needed to be about 16" (13"+1", +1/2" for the other layer). Lucky for me the old padding fit the bill perfectly!

Step 13: Cut Out Your Foam Padding

After that doozie of a step we'll turn it down a notch. Just take you box cutter, or even a pair of scissors, and cut out your circles of padding. All done with the foam!

Step 14: Gently Tack Down Each Layer of Foam

This step is another optional one. I highly recommend putting down a 3-4 dots of hot glue of other adhesive to hold all your foam nice and centered if you'll be moving it around or coming back to it later. Re-centering circles is no fun at all.

Also, if you forgot to drill holes do that now. Be careful not to let the drill grab the foam and rip it!

Step 15: Measure and Cut Out Your New Upholstery

Grab whatever material you want to use for your new seat covering and lets get it cut out! If you're using the same upholstery you took off feel free to skip this, otherwise just lay down your pile of circles and cut out yet another one. Cut this one with a few extra inches around the edge of your top layer of foam. Absolutely zero precision is necessary. as long as there is at least your total thickness of the stack extra around the edge you'll be fine. The foam will squish down on the edge but adding an inch or two to that number is still a good bet, better safe than sorry!

Step 16: Start Tacking Down Your New Covering

We're in the home stretch! Load up that staple gun with your staples that we'll be pulling out with pliers later. Be they long staples or just your normal ones on a lower power, as long as you can pull them out in a few minutes you're ready to go. I recommend stapling into the center area to test how deep they go before starting.

Now then, grab your brand new upholstery and lift it straight up from your surface. Keeping tension on it, pull it around toward the center of your seat. The goal here is to get your layers of soft foam to lift with the upholstery and make that soft looking pillow curve on the edge. Now pull this tight, but not too tight. You want the foam to have enough pressure on it to give it a nice curve, but not just crush it completely flat. Staple the very edge of your material to the board (you'll be adding permanent staples toward the edge later so leave room) and then repeat on the opposite side. Do this again on the two other sides, creating a square shape.

Step 17: How to Smooth Out Any Corners

If any pointy little corners give you trouble, just jam your finger into the trouble area. Gently smooth it from the inside, then pinch and pull the material to the center and staple it down.

Step 18: Finish Tacking Down

Continue to pull each corner in and staple the edge of the material down until you have a roughly circular shape. We're so close now!

Step 19: Smooth Out the Foam and Upholstery

It's finally starting to look like a stool again! Flip your nice seat over and gently work the foam out towards the edges. Some of the foam may be slightly folded or bunched under your upholstery, and we just want to carefully work those creases our now. Softly push down a few inches from the edge of the seat, dragging your thumb toward the edges of the stool. Do this all the way around the edge, then run your fingers around the edge to feel for any areas that feel harder than the rest. Repeat the process there if you find any then move on the the next step.

Step 20: Hammer Leather + Put in the Permanent Staples

Now it is time to put in the nice edge of permanent staples. We won't be removing these one, so time to swap staples or adjust the stapler accordingly. Test it again in the bare seat to make sure it's working how you want, then we're ready to go! We're going to be using a lot more staples this time to get that nice circular shape. I started with a staple long ways so you can see where I began. As you can see in the second photo, if you push down on your material, you can see the edge of your base material. Put these staples close to the edge, but leave about a quarter inch of space to make sure there's a good amount of material to keep the staples in. Work your way around the entire seat, placing staples as close as you can to each other, pressing down and smoothing out the folds as you go. Check the edge as you're stapling, this will be the final shape of your stool! In some cases, such as with an upholstery leather or thicker fabric, the creases on the back may stand relatively proud. Go around as you put in the new ring of staples and tap the folds down with your hammer, then just shoot a staple in there. In the case of leather or a weaker staple gun, hammer your staple tightly into the base of the seat to get a firm, flat hold.

Step 21: Remove Original Staples + Trim Excess Material

Get ready for some elbow grease! Place your seat on something soft so as not to scratch it up, then grab your pliers and wrangle that first set of staples out of the board. Make sure not to lose them, they're not fun to find later in your feet. Once all the staples are removed, grab your knife or scissors again and cut the excess material off. on leather leave about 1/2 and inch of material between the edge and the staples, and leave a bit more for fabrics. If using fabric, you can saturate the remaining edge material in glue and press it down to the bottom of the seat to add durability if you'd like, otherwise we're all done!

Step 22: Attach and Center New Seat to Legs

Now all that's left is to put your nice new seat onto the legs again! Flip your old legs back over, line up the holes and screw them down. If you have a spinning stool like me, right the stool and give it a few spins while the screws are just barely loosened. This will let you adjust the seat to center so it doesn't wobble while it spins. Now tighten them down and that's it!

Important: Make sure your screws are the right length and won't protrude through the wood and poke you while you're trying sit down.

Step 23: Enjoy Sitting in Style!

Congratulations! You did it! Now go put your stool back where it belongs after a glamorous photo shoot and bragging to your friends. Have a relaxing spin, and enjoy your rejuvenated spot to follow other Instructables on!