upholster this!

first upholstery project

upholstery is fun and relatively easy if you choose a simple piece of furniture to begin with. my friend erin had been taking community education classes several years ago and that's how i was first introduced.  my first project was the chair pictured.  it had belonged to my grandfather and he no longer wanted it, so i stripped the fabric, keeping the pieces as intact as possible.  this part can be kind of tedious because you have to pull out either a billion staples or tacks.  there is a special tool for this, but it's SHARP and i stabbed my left hand aplenty.  after it was stripped, i spray painted the exposed wood black, and because the chair was old enough, covered the skeleton with new burlap, which provides a kind of support for the cotton batting which pads the chair.  i provided several layers of fresh cotton batting (the older it is, the smellier) and using the fabric i had stripped, determined how much new fabric i would need.  the old fabric also helps you guesstimate the basic shapes of the fabric; you'll want to hang on to it til you're finished.  using a staple gun (an air gun makes it SO much easier, so be sure to make friends with someone who owns an air compressor!), i stapled the fabric to the wood as close to the inside edge as possible.  sometimes it's helpful to have 3 hands, because stretching the fabric to the proper tension can be challenging.  (it also helps not to staple your finger to the chair, which i've seen happen and is actually kind of cool, as long as it doesn't happen to YOU.)  it needs to be pretty tight but also kept even.  the back piece of fabric was stitched on by hand with clear, nylon upholstery thread and the trim is glued on.  it's kind of time-consuming but so much cheaper than buying a new piece of furniture, even if you take a class.  plus, for me, the satisfaction of being able to look at it and say, "yay me! i totally did that!" is so worth it.

 

(disclaimer:  why WHY did i choose this fabric? one, it's UGly.  and two, what if the french is just french jibberish like the tee shirts i used to see in brazil with english nonsense written on them?  c'est la vie...)