My attempt at upholstery - Part 1

I must say I never envisaged myself tearing off old ugly fabric from a chair and replacing it with something new. Before I tell you how I did it, here are the before and after images:

BEFORE

AFTER

It's not entirely obvious on the photo, but the seat had fallen through, who knows when. The inner "lines" on the seat are where the fabric dips.  Totally not a comfy chair. So the solution was to cover it with a cushion to make it just barely useable.  And then the cushion fell apart.  

Ok, so I knew about this chair.  Then I saw a programme on Channel 4od called "SuperScrimpers"   where they just happened to feature a tutorial on re-upholstering sad-looking furniture on the cheap.  I then remembered I'd seen a tutorial online somewhere, and went through a few links before I found it again, here.  

I got totally excited/impatient/hyper when I discovered that the seat was removable, and that I could probably pull off a little upholstery project.  One little issue was that erm... this isn't my chair(!!!) so I knew I'd have to ask my landlady whether she would let me give the chairs a face-lift.  Thankfully she approved!!

Aside from the tools for this project, which are an investment because I can use them again, I spent very little on the materials for the first chair.  I needed new ply-board for the bottom so the new foam wouldn't fall through the frame.  B&Q: 50p. Nice! A visit to the Children's Scrapstore (amazing place! -membership req.) resulted in a foam pad and enough upholstery fabric (from Ikea) to cover all the chairs.  That and lots of other things came to £5. Score. 

I started straight away because, I'm impatient! Here is how I did it:

 The first job was to remove the old upholstery tacks...

Frame exposed, I think these chairs have been upholstered a few times, judging by the holes in it! 

 I decided to leave the green stuff on because I didn't have anything to replace it with.

The plyboard was missing so I made a template from paper and lined it up on the new plyboard:

A faint pencil mark on the board was enough to saw it.

Then I took some little nails and attached the board to the frame:

In between this photo and the next one I placed this on top of the foam pad and traced around it, and then cut it to the same shape (with a breadknife).  

 I wanted to practise first with some other fabric before I let loose on the real thing, and I figured it would make it easier if I pulled the foam pad into shape using this fabric. 

 

So then came the lovely green fabric, originally from Ikea. I started by stapling one side with one staple, then the opposite side.  Then the same for the two other sides.  Next, I stapled in 2 staple increments (working out from the middle of each side) until I'd almost reached the corners.  

The corners are probably the hardest bit because I had to get the fabric tight enough, but also follow the shape of the frame, and make sure there weren't any ripples on the side.  

Next, the finished product!

I originally planned to sand the frame down and stain the wood a bit darker, but since these aren't my chairs, and I have a limited budget, I decided I'd leave it this time.  I'm pretty happy with the result, and the landlady is too - yay! 

I have 3 more chairs to do, of which 2 will be done with a maroon fabric, so I will post Part 2 with some more pics soon.

-Linda

Hello blogworld

I've decided to give blogland a whirl.  The main purpose of this blog is to keep a record of my projects - which happen when inspiration strikes me - anytime! I am open to and love all the different materials out there, and LOVE learning new techniques.  The internet is pretty awesome for inspiration these days, with all the inhabitants of blogland and Pinterest of course!

It started with knitting, then moved onto crochet, patchwork, re-upholstery, finger-knitting, applique (haven't tried it yet), and I'm sure there are plenty more where those came from.  I've spent a lot of time thinking about and figuring out what I enjoy doing, and from that I've developed my "ethos":

Re-use something if possible, re-purpose, recycle.  This means acquiring materials from charity shops, scrapstores and the like.  When I visit a fabric shop the first stop is the remnants bin.  Some would call it "make-do and mend".  If I have to buy new fabric, just because, erm.... I'm incredibly impatient, I will only look at the "reduced to clear" section.  Quilting cotton can cost anything up to £20 per metre, and jeez I don't think I could justify spending that much on a bit of cotton fabric, just out of principle. 

Here is a picture of a basket I made from simple brown packing paper, and when that ran out, I pulled out some coloured paper to jazz it up a bit:

 The tutorial for these baskets can be found here.

 I have lots more projects in progress or that I want to get started on - watch this space! 

-Linda