Doing something different
They say a change is as good as a rest. As a programmer who has spent much of the past few months working out how to automate cloud building, I thought I would take the opportunity to learn how to re-upbolster some chairs my mum had lent us as a stop gap when they bought a new dining suite and we bought a house with a dining room.
That was 18 years ago and the suite was not in its first flush then.
I’ve been planning on redoing the cushions on the drop in chairs for a while but when my parents did this on their very first dining set, it was quite a different job and I was more than nervous.
While taking in the local town, I noticed fishface in Ipswich’s The Walk offered upholstery classes. That was a while ago because there’s quite a waiting list.
The class was friendly: five other students were all of a similar standard and Penny takes you through the steps of stripping down your furniture (with all the right tools) and then putting it back together. You even get lunch and coffees from the cafe downstairs.
My project aims to take four chairs and two carvers from blush pink velour covers to gold damask (before and after photos coming up):
Before
After
Very nice, so what?
This simple act took nearly six hours and I am chuffed to bits with the results but that makes 30 hours left to do the remaining chairs!
Stripping the seat back to panel and foam is half the job and is not for the lighthearted. You need a drapers staple remover and a suitable mallet – plastic for a plastic handled staple remover and wooden for a wooden handled one.
Take out each and every staple. This takes time and is non trival – plan to do this in the morning and after lunch, do the rest of the job.
Stripping
For this seat there are two bits of fabric to remove: the backing and the decorative pad cover. Being a “modern upholstered piece of furniture” means that is stapled to a bit of ply or thin MDF. There are 40 odd staples holding on the backing and around 50 pinning the decorative cover in place.
After the 15th one, you are promising yourself you don’t need so many so it will be easier next time. You are fooling yourself!
Once the stripping is down you then cover.
Covering
There are three stages as the foam was in one piece. First is a calico cover to give a uniform finish.
Next is the decorative one, going directly over the cailco.
Finally, a backing to finish it all up.
You will notice, we’ve put an extra layer on: which is more staples.
I’m not going to be the one to redo this dining set 🙂
Why don’t you just pay someone to do this for you?
The alternative is paying someone who has all the right equipment to do this for you. I’ve spent about £100 on the fabric.
This took me 5 hours to do one chair. I think I could do a chair in 3-4 hours next time as I won’t be working it out for myself.
This job requires skill and training. Let’s say the pro only takes half a day as a max – six chairs would therefore take three days.
That’s if you don’t need foam or any re-webbing. Plus disposal fees and business rates, insurance etc.
Posted: February 17th, 2019 under 42.