Part 2: Tufting the Back and Seat

Saturday was a crazy work day for this chair. We went shopping in the morning, and got a killer deal at Joann's for the fabric (80% off!! Only paid 60 bucks for 7 yards!!), bought tons of foam at Home Depot for $50 (soo much less than at craft stores. And I think I'll have plenty to do another project after this one.), and got some batting to protect the fabric from exposed wood and springs.
We also spent a fair amount of time driving around desperately trying to find button forms for the tufting...we went to an upholstery store, Joann's, Michael's, you name it. No one seemed to have them, though everyone said everyone else would. We gave up and decided to reuse the old ones. More on that later.
I went to the fabric store thinking I wanted a solid dusky rose color...something to add some very subtle color. I did not get it--I fell head over heels for this instead:

I love, love, love this print. It was 20 bucks a yard, but with the 60% off sale and our 20% off coupon, we could just swing it.
We came home and got to work...cutting the foam, shaping it, drilling holes in it for the tufts. Our method was pretty much look how the original was done and mimic it any way you can.
The buttons were a challenge. I assigned Chris the job of separating the original forms (tough one, because they are only meant to be used once, and aren't made to come apart.) We tried for a while to cover them the way you normally would, but quickly realized that it wouldn't work with used forms. So, I cut big circles of fabric, wrapped them around the forms, and tied them with a piece of thread. (Normally, you would push the fabric into the inner circle of the form, which would clamp it in place. Doesn't work when you've taken apart the original form and it's lost its shape.)

It was pretty tedious work, but once it was done, the tufting was actually really fun. The challenge with tufting is to get the fabric positioned the way you want it. I made it simple by pulling it as tight as I could, adjusting the wrinkles, and pushing the button as far into the foam as it would go...it kept it pretty consistent.

  

I had cut the foam to size by laying the old foam over the new and tracing it out. We did something similar with the holes--just drilled through the existing holes in the foam into the new foam. It kept it simple by eliminating all the measuring we would normally do. Then we just laid the fabric over the new foam and pulled the excess fabric towards the bottom, since we started tufting at the top. (You need more fabric than you think you do, the tufting takes up quite a bit.)

When we were done, we stapled the foam to the chair frame. Here is where all those photos we took while taking it apart came in handy--we knew to wrap the foam over the back of the chair and staple it down, and pull it down and between the back and seat. We only stapled the top, because the fabric, once pulled tight and stapled in place, holds the foam where it needs to be. We didn't staple any foam for the seat, since the fabric pulled through on all sides and we could staple it down. 

OH! And I forgot to mention that we restructured the seat and the springs. Chris got some rope and bound the springs in place, and we screwed some boards in about 5 inches beneath the springs to make the chair more stable, and make sure the springs didn't sag down too far. We also added a layer of foam and batting underneath the springs, but on top of the boards. The original chair didn't have this, and I think it makes the chair more stable and more comfortable. Our saggy seat is gone forever, now we have a firm, but comfortable, chair to sit in.

After a full day's work, and making a MESS of our living room (No joke, Chris didn't even bother to go outside to saw through those boards--it was such a mess a little sawdust made no difference), we were exhausted, but we had finished the biggest part of the chair. Here's how it looks now:

It looks absolutely fantastic. I can't wait to do the arms and wings, and put the final pieces on the back and sides...but I need to find someone to borrow a sewing machine from first, so I can do the piping. And I need to make a decision about the chair legs...I planned initially on painting them white, but now I'm not doing the rose chair anymore, and this fabric has a lot of white in it, so the original brown legs don't look too bad. I think I may just sand them down and put a fresh coat of dark stain on them. 

We are planning on finishing this in the next few days...Chris is building a custom window seat for my sister Ruth, and we want to have this out of the way by then. Plus, Ruth was with me when I got this chair, and she got one herself:

It feels a little Dolores Umbridge-esque to me, but I think she is planning on replacing the hot pink with a subtle floral. Anyway, I promised to reupholster it with her, so I think that will occupy me while Chris is framing the window seat.

I promise to blog again by Wednesday. Have a great week everyone! 

..and some advice from Chris: get your sleep while you can!

...he falls asleep so fast lately...probably because I have him up till 1 pulling out staples. That's true love right there.

Part 1: Stripping the Chair

I few days ago, I was wandering around DI (My town's big thrift store) and I stumbled upon this little beauty:

Now, I am a HUGE fan of blue. and Wing-back armchairs. and tufts. and rolled arms. But I am NOT a fan of smelly furniture with cat hair all over it, stains, worn-out fabric, and popcorn in the seat. Also not a big plus when the springs are broken and you sag to a few inches above the floor when you sit. I got all of this and more in this $20 purchase.
I've been wanting to learn how to reupholster for a while now. I read some really detailed blogs that helped so much. This one was by far the best.
But even so, all of the blogs focused on simple reupholstery...Adding a fabric seat to a wooden chair, making a simple fabric bench, things like that. Everything was pretty simple--nothing has as much work to do as this chair, which is maybe why I picked it...I like a challenge, and I wanted something that I would learn as I went along.
So, here's what I've learned so far!
1. Upholstery is about layering. It's about pulling fabric tight, stapling the heck out of it, and hiding your piles of staples with another layer of fabric, brass tacks, or welting.

(that picture looks weird because the chair is laying on its back, and Chris is kneeling on the back ripping out the front. That's why my leg is hanging out in space halfway up the chair.
2. You need to know how a piece is put together to know how to take it apart and reassemble it. I recommend taking a ton of pictures and studying your piece before you rip into it.
3. When you take something apart, you need to start with the final layers--the final things that were placed on to hide the edges. This probably means ripping off some welting or brass tacks first--these things cover exposed staples.
4. As you pull staples out and remove sections of fabric, write what it is, where it goes, how it folds, and what order you removed it in. When you reupholster, you will want to know the order you took it apart in. For example, I took off the brass tacks, the face of the rolled arms, then the front seat panel, then ripped off the four seams that were hidden underneath the chair, which led me to take off the panels on the sides under the arms, then the outside of the wingbacks, then the back of the chair, then the inside of the wingbacks and arms (one piece), then the seat, then the seat back. So, when I put it back together, I will do the seat back, then seat, then insidewingbacks and arms, back of the chair, outside wingbacks, side panels under the arms, front seat panel, face of rolled arms, and finally the brass tacks to cover those last seams. The order matters, because everything is placed to cover up something else, and if you mess it up you will be back to ripping out stapels.
6. Remember or take pictures so you know how something is constructed. If it is a piece of fabric stapled to a cardboard strip to the chair, and then wrapped over, and that's how they hide the seam, take a picture or write it down so you remember how to hide that particular seam next time.
5. Get someone to help. It took me and Chris about 5 hours to strip the chair down to its bones...it would have taken me triple that by myself (Chris is a fast worker, and after building fences all day, sitting on the floor pulling out staples was relaxing for him. And his hands are calloused all over, so he didn't whimper every time he got stabbed by a staple.)

6. Save what you can. Our chair was in pretty bad shape, and smelled, so we threw away all of our batting, cardboard strips, and foam, but we were able to save some nail strips, some interior cording, and brass tacks.
7. Figure out if anything is wrong with the chair, and how you want to fix it. If it smells, throw away the interior. If it is dirty, get some heavy-duty cleaner and scrub the remaining exposed wood. If you hate the dated wooden legs, sand, prime, and paint. If the springs are broken and the seat sags, get new springs, fix the connector for the surviving old ones, and come up with a new method of construction that suits your desire for a soft but firm seat. Our chair had springs, then batting, then foam, then fabric. We are planning on adding some wooden crosspieces for stability, extra foam, extra batting, THEN springs, batting, foam, and fabric.

So, if you are working on ripping apart a chair, I guess I have this to say: every chair is different. Yours might have welting that was glued over some staples, and you can just pull it off to get at them. Or it might have a metal strip of nails hidden under the fabric that doubles as staples and camouflage, and you need to pry it off with a hammer. Figure out how to take it apart piece by piece, take pictures, and remember how to do it for later.

If all goes well, and you stick to it, you should have this in less than a day:

...and a very messy house that is not at all foot-friendly.

Next step: paint, buy fabric & foam, cut patterns and sew joint pieces together

Mason Jar Soap Dispensers

I saw some beautiful blue mason jars at Macy's a few weeks ago and HAD to use them for something. I got some cheap soap dispensers from the dollar store, Chris drilled a few holes in some lids, I went crazy with my black Rustoleum spray paint, and viola! We had 6 colorful soap dispensers.

White looks a LOT better in these jars...I filled 2 with lotion, 1 with dish soap, and 2 with hand soap, using things I already had at home. Unfortunately, the hand soap I had was honey hand soap.

It looks like Chris peed in the jar.
Still, it looks better than the cheap plastic dispensers, and we will buy new soap soon.
I would recommend getting nicer pumps than dollar store ones...we got them because we are cheap, and didn't want to buy expensive soap dispensers only to throw away the bottle and paint the pump. Home depot, Lowes, and Hobby Lobby didn't have just the pump, so we bought some cheapo ones instead...but we've had some problems with them sticking. I think we may upgrade eventually.
The other thing that is nice about these is that they are totally reuseable. We glued the pump to the lid, but the lid unscrews, so we could hypothetically throw away the lids, rinse it out, and drink from it, use it as a vase, or even can with it. I think maybe someday I will get a whole bunch and use them as my drinking glasses, but for now, I love my soap dispensers. :)

Chest of Drawers Reconstruction

 When Chris and I were in New Mexico for his family reunion, we dropped by Hobby Lobby to get some things for his Mom. And I found an absolute treasure. Actually, it was a broken-down mess. It was what was once a beautiful piece of furniture...in pieces. Literally, in 8 splintered pieces. I think someone must have chucked it off the back of a truck, because it was absolutely dominated. The tag said that it was 90% off. We got this chest of drawers for $30 instead of $300. We squashed it into our trunk (next to the chop saw and drill, which for some reason had to come on vacation with us), and drove back to Provo with it a few days later.

We got home around 9:00, and we were so excited about our new piece of furniture that we put it back together that night. It was pretty simple. The wooden framing that separates the drawers was ripped out, and the interior drawer slides were all broken off, too. All of the drawer faces were separated, and one of them was completely off. It was made very poorly--no glue, no nails, no screws, just staples. (We were amazed they tried to sell it for 300, even intact...it probably cost them around 10 bucks to make!) With a few hours, some wood glue, apoxy, and a pair of pliers, we reconstructed the chest. Here's how it turned out:

 It doubles as a side table and a linen closet...I have all our towels (and some fabric and crafty stuff) organized inside it. I love furniture that has hidden storage!!

I got the lamp at a white elephant last year, and I made the pillows a few months ago with Ruth. (Oops, forgot to blog about that...) Ruth gave me the chevron fabric, and I chose Robert Allen's botanical blue print to accent it. They bring some comfort and color to our drab little apartment.

Ruth is a great sewing buddy...She not only let me use her machine and helped me work out the patterns, but she helped me rip out an entire pillow sham that I'd sewn the wrong way. (I'm hoping that she will someday want to learn how to reupholster with me! I have a dream of getting some cheap thrift store chairs and reupholstering them with dusty-rose floral fabric.)

Pallet Projects

In early spring of this year, Chris and I decided to build some bedside tables. To save money, we bought 10 wooden pallets at $2 apiece, so $20 total. It was a lot of work to take all those nails out, and a lot of the wood was damaged and unusable when we were done (hence the 10 pallets instead of 5). But in the end, we had a HUGE pile of wood...enough to make some insanely awesome paneled rustic nightstands.

 ...Because we were using so many small pieces, we used a LOT of screws. Still, we probably spent less than $15 on 3 or 4 boxes of screws, and had lots leftover.

 The drawer is SUPER NICE. We splurged here and got the nicest drawer hardware Home Depot had...It opens so smoothly and you can pull it all the way to the back of the drawer. Drawer Hardware was about $30 for two. We got the bird drawer-pulls at Hobby Lobby for about $4 each, so $8 total.

Mom and Dad gave Chris a Kreig Jig for his birthday. It was absolutely invaluable in this project...all of the wood was about 3 inches wide, so we had to attach a TON of little pieces to make any kind of surface. You can't see in these photos, but the sides and back of each one are paneled, as well as the top. It took us a lot of time to put these together--used up all of our weekends and free days for about a month and a half. We LOVE them, but we've agreed we would NEVER build these ever ever ever again....it was too much work reusing old pallets and jigging all those tiny pieces. However, it was a good deal...We paid $72 for both of them! (And that would have been closer to $50 if we had done a little work and got free pallets...still, I think the wood was a little better quality and in better shape buying it. Most pallets are hardwood, and the different kinds of woods add some nice character and color to each piece. We decided not to stain them, because we loved the natural color of the wood.

We did have a lot of wood leftover, and we didn't mind doing a few simple follow-up projects with some nicer pieces of wood.

  

 

 I actually made this coat hanger by myself!! Chris wasn't even in the shop. It was pretty simple, and we found some pretty hardware that matched the blue birds on our nightstands. Total cost: $15 for hardware from Hobby Lobby.

 It may look a little feminine, but that hasn't stopped Chris from taking it over. He much prefers hooks to hangers or towel racks. ;)

 I couldn't get a good picture of the mirror we made together...so this is the best I've got. It's also made of pallet wood, kreig jigged together and glued with mirror adhesive. Total cost: about $40. Mirrors are MUCH cheaper when you buy the pane from Home Depot and frame it yourself. It's actually pretty huge, this picture makes it look smaller than it really is.

We had some really interesting pieces that we turned into shelves. Again, it's hard to tell, but the edges are curved and uneven, and make it look like the wood just washed up on the beach. We used the Kreig Jig on these, too, so they look like floating shelves.

We thought about making a little headboard for our bed, but decided that we didn't want our house absolutely dominated by pallets. I'm planning on building a tufted white linen headboard, after we finish all the other projects on our list. (I'm redoing my spice cupboard, and we are sanding down our trunk and restaining it next week...and Chris has been doodling sketches for Ruth and Jordan's window bench for a while now. Today he told me he just "stopped by Home Depot really quick" to just "look around at some prefab that matches their wainscoting." I have a feeling that we will be building their bench in the next week or two, as well.)