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!
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| Bought this chair at a cosignment shop in Somerville. |
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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.
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| Webbed in so my tush doesn't fall through when I sit down. |
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| Then I added a layer of cotton, followed by foam, Hang in there! |
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| ....followed by muslin and finally ready to reupholster! |
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| The fabric was nailed in with a magnetic hammer and then stapled in. |
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| 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. |
