Saturday, August 10, 2013

Reupholstery Re-do

With my parents moving into their new house, we have "adopted" some new things (and a lot of times we have "adopted" them right before they were put at the street or taken to Good Will.)  My dad had this chair in his bedroom at a writing desk that he had at the old house. 


Minutes before it went to Good Will, I saved it... and brought it to my house... to let it sit in our garage all summer.  I wanted to use this chair in my classroom, but at this point it was incredibly dirty and I didn't think I could clean it (and I wasn't crazy about the blue.)

I found some fabric at Joann's and bought 3 1/2 yards not knowing how much would be needed.

 
My mom came down to help me.  I figured that I had a DIY blog, the tools needed and my mom... we so we could knock this out in about 4 hours or so and I would have a great new seat for my classroom.

WRONG!  This was how far we got in the first 4 hours...  I'm not kidding...


This is what it looked like at the end of day one. 

 
This is the main thing I learned from this project: I don't like upholstery.  I will not take on another project like this unless it looks like it will be much easier (like reupholstering dining room chairs with the one seat cushions etc.)  But I will not be buy recliners from Good Will and turning them into something special... no way:
  -The fabric was more expensive that I would have liked (I'm cheap with fabric because I'm still not confident in what I'm doing.  What if I mess it up?  I would feel much better throwing away a $2 a yard fabric than a $20...) 
  -The staple gun is hard to use. 
  -We couldn't put it back together the way it was professionally assembled.
  -We weren't confident that it would stay as we were assembling it.
  -You need two people to be able to pull the fabric as needed.  It was a blast spending that much time with my mom, don't get me wrong, but if I bring too many more of these projects home... she'll quit answering my phone calls...
 
Luckily, we were able to finish the main parts of the chair in two days.  So a few days later my mom came back and we finished the "two person" job.  We still had the piping to do and the bottom pieces, but that was something I could do on my own.  The piping is the part directly touching the wood below.  It required a little bit of sewing, but not much.
 
This is what the piping looks like:



 
I also wanted to cover the bottom (because that is how it was previously) but I wasn't sure if I wanted to use the green fabric or if I wanted to spend more $$ and buy black fabric just for this project.  In talking a friend, Mrs. DiAnna, I obtained extra upholstery fabric that she had.  I probably would have used it if it were maroon, but it was perfect... black!


We cheated when it came to the back and bottom, we glued it instead of stapling it.  We thought about doing the tacks, but that would have been another 3 days work if you ask me...  so we glued the back on and let that dry for a couple of days.  Then I flipped the bottom over and glued that.  I did put a few staples in the bottom just for extra hold but not very many. 

I put the base back on, and...  Ta-da!



 
A perfect new chair for my classroom....  Go Knights!!
 
 
Special thanks to my mom... it wouldn't have happened without her.  And Mrs. DiAnna came in very handy too.  Love you both!





1 comment:

  1. We start by stripping back your exciting covers and the top layers of the padding, the springs and frame joints are inspected and repaired or replaced as necessary where required. This is all included in your re upholstery quote and will not be charged for.

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