Central Square Chair Sale: before & after

before + after

It took seven three-hour classes, but my first chair transformation is complete! Overall, it was a very fulfilling experience. Not only do I have something to show for my efforts, I gained a greater appreciation for the craft of upholstery, a better understanding of why furniture costs so darn much, and I have a fully stocked tool box!

The chair has been dubbed "Princess Chair" by my roommates and no one sits in it except the cats. It's not perfect, but my next one will be ;)

Central Square Chair Sale: 21 Hours

double welt trim

The last step of the upholstery process was adding double welt trim to cover the staples. There are other trim options, such as home decor gimp, decorative tacks or single welt cording, but I think double welt was the right choice for this chair. Plus I learned how to use a sewing machine in the process! I took two pieces of welting cord and stitched strips of my fabric around them. It took a few tries...luckily I had plenty of extra fabric. After the trim was finished I simply hot-glued it over the staples. Piece of cake.

Central Square Chair Sale: 19 Hours

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Buttons were threaded through the back of the chair with a giant foot-long needle. It is important to decide on whether or not you want buttons before the back of the chair is attached. Otherwise you'll be doing a lot of staple removal and cursing...

Once the buttons were threaded I tied a slip knot. This allows the button "depth" to be adjusted. The cotton keeps the slip knot from sliding around as you make adjustments. Once all of my buttons were even, I tied a final knot to fix them into place. I had to learn how to use a sewing machine for the next step: Making double-welt trim to cover the staples. Stay tuned!

Central Square Chair Sale: 18 Hours

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After draping and cutting the fabric, which I actually wanted in a sage green but couldn't find, I tacked and stapled it around the cushions. Because this was the final layer of fabric, I had to be very careful and precise when stapling to make sure all of my lines were symmetrical. Spur of the moment I decided to add buttons, which I created with a button machine and navy blue scraps, to the back of my chair. Here they are just pinned up so that I could move them around before deciding on a final position. Also, that crazy math in the background has nothing to do with furniture upholstery...

Central Square Chair Sale: 15 Hours

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After the foam was in place I measured, cut, and stapled cotton muslin over the seat and back of the chair. The muslin holds the shape of the cushion and prevents the stuffing from popping out in all directions. Next comes...you guessed it...FABRIC!

Central Square Chair Sale: 13 Hours

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Once I had a few even layers of cotton down I cut a piece of one-inch foam to cover it. Foam is not the easiest material to work with. My foam in particular was very soft and tore easily. I had to work with a partner and quickly staple the foam down evenly on all sides to prevent it from taring out of the staples. Who knew furniture upholstery was a team building activity?

Central Square Chair Sale: 12 Hours

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For this chair I used one-inch soft foam as my top layer of padding. I traced the shape of the chair frame onto the foam and cut it out. Here is where I had to start paying attention to details, because if I was sloppy about attaching my foam, my whole chair would look lopsided - and who wants to sit on a lopsided chair? No one, that's who. I had to staple the foam very slowly, working from top to bottom, so as to not accidentally deform my cushion shape. My arms were aching from holding the staple gun steady for so long.

Central Square Chair Sale: 10 Hours

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I created the lip you see around the seat of the chair by rolling strips of cotton in burlap and stapling them to the frame. These rolls are designed to hold in the padding, as well as create a rounded edge once the fabric is added. Cotton goes down before the foam to create a desired shape, as well as provide extra padding. Here I used two layers of cotton to raise the center of the chair back. It's so primitive looking, but I guess it's how the pros still do it!

Central Square Chair Sale: 9 Hours

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Next up was stapling pieces of burlap over the webbing. This went pretty quickly. Then came the sanding and staining of the frame.

Central Square Chair Sale: 8 Hours

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Once the chair was dry I cut strips of burlap webbing. These were were then stretched, weaved, and stapled to the seat and back of the chair. The webbing on the back of the chair is only partially weaved to maintain the curve of the chair. This was a really fun process, mostly because it is starting to look like a chair again!

Sanding and staining should have actually taken place before the webbing was added, but I wouldn't have been able to work on the chair that day while it was drying had I applied stain at the beginning of class. I waited until the end and just worked around the material.

Central Square Chair Sale: 4 Hours

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Sometimes situations have to get worse before they get better...

Central Square Chair Sale: 1 Hour

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About four weeks ago, after months of complaining about my hobbyless lifestyle, I finally signed up for a continuing ed. class at the BA&CE in Brookline, MA. The course, as you may have deduced from the photo, is Furniture Upholstery.

Remember this chair from my original Central Square Chair Sale post??? Turns out, Mr. Shalimar has hundreds of these chairs in his store basement. I picked this one out for my project. This picture was taken about an hour into my first class. It took a whole HOUR to tear out enough nails to remove HALF of the seat fabric. I have a long way to go...

Central Square Chair Sale

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$20 each (but I bet you could talk Mr. Shalimar down). The carvings and finishes on all the chairs are slightly different. Sat on a few. They're pretty sturdy. There were twice as many out on the street last week. I wanted to get a picture before they all found homes. If I knew how to reupholster (and had a truck) I'd take home four today.

Bye Bye Bunny

The infamous Bishop Allen bunny is no more. I don't know who originally tagged my Central Square office building with the bunny, but for years it has remained untouched - a big deal in a neighborhood covered in graffiti. The bunny was respected. That is, until a few weeks ago when my building was attacked and someone broke the unspoken rule. The bunny couldn't be saved. Painters are outside now finishing up. Tear.