Whether it's a vintage paisley print from a 60s bedspread you find at a thrift store, or some crazy day-glo fabric from the 1990s that you've rescued from a tag sale, any great secondhand textile you can find can have a second life, and bring a whole new feeling to your workplace, if you use it to recover your desk chair. Here's how to use a little recycling know-how to turn that seat on wheels into a serious design piece, so that you can get that sweet new-chair-feeling without buying a new chair.

- Findhttp://cm.howstuffworks.com/article-template.php?step2 about a yard and a half of post-consumer fabric. Recycled fabric is great for lots of projects, so you might want to start collecting it at flea markets, thrift stores, and wherever else you spot something cool. If you don't want to spend your day sitting on someone else's old material, though, you can always opt for a new green fabric that's manufactured with sustainability in mind.

- Gather up a couple of common household tools. You'll want

- You'll need to cut a piece of fabric for the seat of your chair that is about two feet by two feet square, and another piece for the back-rest part of your chair, probably around two feet by a foot and a half.

- First, free the back rest. Take the hardware off with a screwdriver or an Allen wrench, so that you can get the back rest off of the metal frame.

- Wedge your screwdriver (flathead, please!) between the backrest cushion and the plastic frame that holds it, and pop the cushion out.

- Grab your smaller piece of fabric, wrap it over the front of the backrest cushion, and secure it with staples from a staple gun. Try a few anchoring staples, one in the middle of each side, and then do the detail work, folding and gathering the fabric as you go so that it lies smooth. When you've got it all pulled into place, trim away any hanging fabric.

- Pop the cushion back into it's plastic holder, grab the hardware, and reattach it to the metal chair frame. Cool! You're halfway done.

- Follow the same steps with the seat cushion, using your other piece of fabric.

- Enjoy your awesome new/old chair!

Check out the Planet Green Schedule to catch more neat green workplace ideas on the Office episode of Stuff Happens.