The Chair

I have finally gotten to work on the chair! Just after Christmas I started this project by removing the old fabric from the chair. As you can see, the upholstery was tacked on with many brads. It was not the most fun I’ve ever had and my hands were cut up fairly badly by the time I was done but at least it was off with the old!

I enlisted my mom, who is much more crafty and talented than I am, to help me with this project on my last Friday off and I am very glad I did! She sees things differently than I do and when doing upholstery I have found it is always good to have more than one set of hands!

We started off by laying the old pieces, which had been removed from the chair, onto the new material I purchased. This allowed us to see which pattern on the material would be shown once the chair was recovered. This is something I would not have thought to do. Thanks Mom!

We then cut the material, leaving ourselves lots of room for mistakes and fixed it in place on the chair with straight pins. The next step was to let one person hold the material in place while the other person fixed it to the chair using the staple gun. I had 8mm staples and I quickly decided that they were too short. In places, the corners for example, you will staple through several layers of material as well as wood. I purchased 10mm staples and they worked much better.

I decided not to put decorative tacks on the newly recovered chair, except in the back where they will be required to hold the material in place but I haven’t quite gotten that done yet. So with the exception of the back piece, the chair is done! I am very glad that I decided to take everyone’s advice and go with the red! I have more in the works with regards to pillows and a table runner, but that’s another post!