Upholstery 101

10/6/2013

Hello again, friends! I'm back and with something a little different than paint today! Hubs, my lovely mom and myself are taking upholstery class from Bill at The Crafted Cow.

Bill and Hubs, deconstructing and old, creep, disgusting glider.

Bill's beautiful wife, Becky - a wealth of information!

I can't even tell you how excited I am to be learning how to upholster. It's something I've been interested in for quite some time now. Bill is very good about working around our crazy schedules for evening classes. He runs a small class to insure everyone gets a good deal of time with him - something that is very important when learning a hands on trade like upholstery.
Mom, hubs and I picked out 3 different types of projects to spread our learning around. We thought it would be a good idea to learn how to do a variety of pieces.

Hub's thrift shop glider. This find totally grosses me out, but has potential to be a nice rocker when we are done!

Mom found these beauties on Craigslist. I LOVE THEM!!!! They have some water damage, so they needed reupholstering.

This is my project. It's barrel back, tufted and wing chair-ish. If you know what this thing is called, let me know. I can't wait to take it from drab to fab! :-)

We are going to be taking classes for 10 weeks, so I'll do my best to post our progress along the way. In the meantime, here are some more pictures from our first class.

See all of the tacks in this chair. They are everywhere - these are not tack strips. Each and every one of them is an individual tack and under every one is a staple. It's no wonder why she ended up needing a band-aid!

Mom says, " Staples are sharp!" Hahaha - poor mom. She earns the distinction of first ouchie!

The glider came apart very quickly. It really does not have that much fabric. Our plan is to strip the glaze and paint it.

My project is going to take a bit longer to deconstruct. All of the buttons have to be marked so we can use the existing front piece as a template for the replacement. I can see this one is going to require some homework in order to complete it on time. There are about a million staples in this chair.
I'm hopeful we'll be able to start on a couple of other pieces, if we can complete these in time.

Thank you for stopping by! I'm really excited to share our progress with you guys!

Linking Up at These Great Parties!

4 Comments

Michal link

10/9/2013 03:44:38 am

This is a serious goal of mine. I want to learn this because I find cool chairs all the time at thrift stores. Thanks for the interesting post. Sorry for the staple stab. :( (I found you via Fluster buster link up)

Kris link

12/15/2013 02:28:47 am

Hi Michal - Sorry for the delayed reply to your comment. Holy moly, all 10 classes are done and I cannot believe how much work upholstery is. It's been so interesting though, you should definitely look up a class in your area. Look for a very SMALL class environment, though. I would not recommend a community college course.

Sarah link

10/15/2013 03:18:55 am

I love that! Can't wait to hear more about your class & how your piece comes out! Thank so much for sharing on Thank You Honey’s Whatever Wednesday Party! Hope to see you this week!

Sarah!