My Upholstery Journey

I settled on taking an upholstery class at the Eliot School in Jamaica Plain, MA after reading a review on it from Apartment Therapy.  The class is taught by the affable Paul DeVito and son.  I've not been to anything resembling a class in 8 years and on the first day I was shivering in my boots. 

It was all for naught however, as Paul was so pleasant, funny, and patient as I was stumbling towards getting my first project done.  Paul suggested starting with a small dining room chair as a bigger project, such as a wing chair, would take more than one semester to complete.  I was at first skeptical of this, but during the process of reupholstering, I realized how difficult and time consuming it was. I got quite the little workout and even some cuts and bruises along the way!

 Bought this chair at a cosignment shop in Somerville.  

First step - Strip the chair. I used a ripping tool specially designed for pulling out nails and staples easily. I didn't realize how many layers one little dining chair had (About 5)! Or even how many tools I would need for reupholstering (6 at least). It took me the whole class to strip this down. And this was probably the easiest part.

Before I could get to reupholstering, Paul insisted upon breaking down the chair to make it sturdy again.  *grumble* That smile is totally fake, I didn't enjoy this part at all.  Here I'm clasping the glued bits together. 

The next part consists of webbing. This tool is used to pull the webbing tight against the chair in order to nail it down.

Webbed in so my tush doesn't fall through when I sit down.

 

Then I added a layer of cotton, followed by foam, Hang in there!

 

....followed by muslin and finally ready to reupholster!



The fabric was nailed in with a magnetic hammer and then stapled in.

Paul helped me sew a double coil for the trim and it was then hot glued in. A few coats of stain was applied to the wood and viola! Hard work but so worth it in the end.

  

 

hey oooh

Hi out there. My first entry. What brought me here is my love of shabby chic decor, design, and finding a space to organize my thoughts somewhere.

Before I bought my first home, my boyfriend Ian reluctantly promised that I could be the one to decorate this time. It was surprisingly tough getting him to agree to this.  Ian, an avid HGTV watcher (I know, HGTV really? hes a "modern man" he says) decorated our last apartment and I admit, the kid's a natural.  A white branch here, grey and amethyst tones there, and our apartment was met with ooo's and ahhh's from virtually everyone who ever visited.  I even remember an occasion of us walking into West Elm.  He was putting some plates and things together and asked "What do you think about this?" Before I could answer, a woman walked up to him and exclaimed "Wow, I love what you did with that, so fabulous!" And there you have it, a decorating ego exploded.

Nonetheless, he relented. I was to decorate our new home.  I was thoroughly excited by this challenge. Growing up in tiny NYC rental apartments, I didn't have much space to let my creativity run wild. 

First order of business, get some new chairs. Shabby chic french vintage looking ones.  I scoured the internet and found them, but at $700 a pop, they were too rich for my blood.  Then I had a thought as I was looking through craigslist.  Why not just reupholster my own chair?