UPHOLSTERING 101

FIRST UPHOLSTERY PROJECT

THE BEFORE - WHAT A SAD STORY
Last fall I saw a dresser for sale on Craig's list.  When I got to the woman's house to look at it, I found a whole garage full of furniture and stuff.  She and her husband had won the bid on a storage unit - sight unseen.  I ended up buying the dresser, an antique secretary and two pairs of chairs.  A couple of weeks ago I decided it was time to try re-upholstering.  How hard could it be?

STEP 1 - Removing the gazillion staples holding the fabric on the chair.  The experts on YouTube use a handy-dandy upholstery staple remover.  I called Jacobs Upholstery and luckily they had one for sale.  He said they sell them to the people who take their upholstery class.  Hey, maybe I should take a class!  WHAT?  There is a two year waiting list for the class.  Ain't nobody got time for that!  The remover worked like a charm.  I now had a naked chair.

STEP 2 - Painting the chair.  I decided to paint the chair with ASCP Paris Grey with a light and dark wax and then silver leaf the details.  Zip Zop the chair was painted and silvered.  That was easy and I didn't even get any paint or wax on the living room carpet where I had decided to work so I could watch HGTV.

STEP 3- Fabric  I went to JoAnn's and Hancock Fabrics.  I didn't really know what I wanted except it needed to be cheap.  Not that I doubted my skills or anything but I didn't want to spend a fortune on fabric. I found the perfect fabric on sale at Hancock for only 7.99 yd.  I could afford to screw it up at that price. I found cording to match the fabric which meant saving lots of time not having to make my own.

STEP 4 - The Pattern.  I used the old pieces that I had carefully removed to cut the new pieces.  I cut them a little bigger to leave room for stapling.

STEP 5- The Staple Gun - Back to YouTube to see how to staple.  Hey, I want one of those cool pneumatic staple guns.   It looks like fun and so much easier than manually stapling a gazillion staples. Off to Home Depot. I was really excited to use my sweetie's air compressor and he enthusiastically brought it from the garage to the basement where it was warm and light. Oh, I couldn't wait to use it.   Hmmmm....  Something wasn't right.  The staples were way to thick.  Hey, YouTube guy, what kind of stapler do you use.  Oh, there is a special upholstery staple gun that you can't buy anywhere but on line.  That makes me sad.  Well, how about the electric stapler?  That would be easy.  Bummer, it wasn't strong enough to get the staples in tight.  I had to do it the old fashioned way with a manual stapler.

STEP 6- The chiropractor for my aching shoulder and arm.

Step 7 - The cushion and the cording.  I love my hot glue gun!

Final Analysis - I had fun and learned a lot and will probably do more upholstery projects, but I'm keeping my day job.

Cost $35.00

Chair $10.00

 Fabric 15.00
Cording 20.00
I had the paint and wax and silver leaf