The End of Upholstery

My upholstery class has come to an end....

After TWO semesters of classes, I have finally finished my chair - a small rocking chair. In the beginning, I thought I would surely finish it in one semester and still have time to do another soft furnishings project. So you can imagine my surprise when the fall semester ended and I hadn't even begun to put the top fabric on the chair!  In the future, I will GLADLY pay an upholster to re-upholster any chair I find.....it is worth every dollar (or pound) spent! 

This 20 pound rocking chair that I bought off of ebay has somehow manifested itself into a 300-plus pound chair without countless hours of work and injuries behind it! Needless to say, it will now be the "prized" chair in our household and if you find yourself in our home, I would not suggest bringing any type of food near it as I am sure that would not be in your best interest if you ever want to be invited back.... (just kidding!).  Understandably, I am a bit attached to this chair now since so much time and many bruised fingers went into its redesign. 

Here are some photos to tell the story of its transition....

All of the fabric, cushions, and more came off to leave me only with the frame of the chair.

Starting to rebuild the body of the chair.

The very tight rubber strips that make up the seat of the newly redone chair. The ends are these metal clips that were near impossible to wedge into the sides of the chair frame!

The newly refinished wood on the chair frame, and a nearly completed seat frame.

The positioning of the top fabric to make sure the pattern works for the space...

The top fabric is now on the back part of the chair. Now, the seat cushion is put on.

First, the muslin is "tacked" on by using a hammer and 13 mm tacks to keep the muslin in place. The muslin is attached to the foam with super glue so that the foam will be able to be attached to the wood frame. 

After the tacks are in place, then the stapling begins and ultimately the tacks are removed. Here is an up close view of the staples in the muslin that attaches the foam cushion to the chair frame.

After foam is intact, a layer of muslin then goes over the foam to make sure the fabric lays correctly, again tacking the muslin first and then stapling it. Once I tacked the muslin to the bottom cushion, I realized it wasn't laying correctly, so I had to untack it and add batting to it to smooth it out. 

Finally, the smooth muslin layer with the right "cuts" on the side so the top fabric can be put on.

The top fabric is on the bottom cushion! Now, just the back of the chair to go...

The muslin layer gets tacked on to the back of the chair.

The staple "gun" (compressor machine) that was my aide in finishing the chair.

The back of the chair is finished with the staples in the muslin.

Then, a "guide" for the top fabric is first tacked onto the top area of the back of the chair.

It is then stapled into place, and when folded over, it helps create a neat crease/edge for the back fabric on the chair. 

Then, it was finally time to staple on the underneath fabric of the chair to finish it off!!!!!

Upholstery Class Progress

I missed a few of my upholstery classes due to my travels with my sister, but I have been back in class now for another two weeks. I really thought this chair would be fairly easy to reupholster. Clearly, I did not know what all went in to such an endeavor.

I have successfully spent hours hammering a tool into this chair to remove all of the staples that held the fabric, batting, foam, and support strips into this frame. Here is the progression of my work....

The metal lining that was attached with staples, I had to tear (carefully) off of the chair. 

The fabric, then the batting layer, comes off of the chair....leaving the old (slightly gross) foam layer.

After hammering more staples out of the chair, the foam layer gets removed, leaving only the support strips attached to the chair. 

After I removed the foam and fabric layers, I brought the chair home and attempted to strip the stain off of the bottom of the chair. I will eventually re-stain the wood. 

Once the support strips were removed, it was just a frame of a chair! 

I then made a paste of saw dust and glue to fill in all of the holes from the old staples on the chair. Doesn't this mixture slightly resemble canned tuna fish? Thankfully, it didn't smell like tuna....

Back to School

Yesterday, I became a college student again. I am taking a 12 week upholstery class at the local college as a part-time student, near our house. I thought it would be a good way to meet people and would give me something to do for a while. Of course, I am the youngest person in the class by about 30 years, but that's ok. The other students were all quite nice and were all interested in why I live here now, what brought me to England, and how I heard about the class. They all call the instructor their "tutor" which is a bit different than a college in the US. 

Here is my "subject" for the next 12 weeks...a small rocking chair I just bought off of the UK ebay. I was surprised when the tutor told me she thought it would take me the full 12 weeks to finish. However, after my first full class, I understood why she told me it would take 12 classes to finish it. I spent the entire time removing the staples from only the underside and the backside of the chair!

My "subject." I was glad to find this chair on ebay and luckily the previous owner lived just one exit off to motorway from our house, so I think it was a perfect fit for this very situation.

The chair after my first class showing the removal of the backside of the fabric of the chair.