I am here with Amy from Design Intervention and we are walking you through a reupholstering project. Click here to see the first post in this series. I had a blast with her this past weekend redoing some antique chairs. Our husbands are lucky we live halfway across the country from one another. We would do some major thrifting, crafting, reupholstering, sewing, gluing, sawing, cutting, decoupaging, embroidering…you get the picture. She has some amazing talent. I felt like an amateur in her presence.
Ok carrying on…
It was interesting to see what was inside the chair. We found out it had been reupholstered twice already. We found evidence of pink and red fabric. Interesting. We also saw the mark on the frame from the original company that constructed it.
We set the stuffing aside…
We sanded the chair with a fine grit sandpaper and spray painted it with my favorite…Rustoleum’s Canyon Black. I decided I loved the legs of the chair so we would not be putting the skirt back on.
While the chair was drying we started recovering a bunch of buttons for the tufting…
Bad idea…we thought the ones you buy at any craft store would do. Once we got started we realized that when you tighten them the button part separates and pops off. One hour later and a trip to Joann Fabrics and we got some plain, black, shank buttons.
We used the old fabric as a guide to cut out the new fabric. We marked the holes where the buttons went with a fabric pen onto the new fabric.
Then we placed the buttons in place and tied them off with a little of the stuffing tufts in between the knot so it would not pull out. Using my air stapler we stapled them off onto the chair frame for more stability.
An upholsterer’s best friend…
Then we started pulling the fabric taut and stapled it as we went. Make sure you staple evenly. It is best to start in the middle and then staple a little of the left side and then do the right side, then back to the left. That way your fabric stays as straight as possible. Also keep in mind the direction of the pattern when placing your pieces. You don’t want any upside damask 😉
We ended up making a lot of single cording/piping for the bottom of the chair and the cushions…
and a ton of double cording which we will hot glue around the frame covering up all the staples later.
Then we had to cut the fabric all the way around the frame with some tiny sharp scissors. You want to get as close to the frame as possible so you can cover up the staples and fabric with the double cording later.
