Do it Yourself
Upholstery Project 1!
Here's our first learn how to do your own Upholstery project! Of course, we couldn't pick just a simple project. We found this sofa at a thrift store and paid $50.00 for it. Our expert advises us that this is a high quality antique. Let me introduce our expert, his name is Craig. He has 37 years experience in custom upholstery. He has designed and built new furniture for many companies. Every Upholster has their own technique, the one we are using is Craig's.
Here is a picture of the sofa after the recovery was completed. We have been having computer problems and lost most of our pictures. Hopefully, we will be able to recover most of them and be able to finish all the instructions. Whatever pictures we can't recover, we'll still include the instructions and try to cover what was lost in a future project. Sorry about that, but you know how computers are!
Craig is able to tell the quality and age of a piece by the way it is constructed. One of the biggest factors in determining the age was this sofa had curled hair filling (also called Horse Hair) which has not been used for years. The legs were built as part of the frame instead of attached by screws. The springs are heavy duty and eight way hand tied which when tied in this fashion will last 20 to 30 years. Tacks were used instead of staples which is common now. This process was called "spitting tacks" because the tacks were held in the mouth and hammered in one by one with a tack hammer. A tack hammer is magnetic on one end, which was used to remove the tacks from the mouth. The tack is then stay tacked with the magnetic end, the hammer is turned over embedding the tack. This process was extremely slow, being done hundreds of times per piece of furniture. That is why they now use air staple guns.
The first step in recovery to strip a piece is to turn it upside down. Then remove the bottom black dust cover and all of the tacks or staples which hold the fabric all the way around the bottom of the piece. Next, remove the outside back, by going up the sides and across the top. Also, remove the padding and burlap. The outside arms are next, which are done the same as the outside back. In this particular case, all of the webbing, seat springs, padding and tacks needed to be removed to clean the piece. This will include the entire frame. Basically, we're starting over but in reverse order from how we will upholster the sofa. When doing an antique such as this, it's a good idea to replace the webbing and burlap. The brown tinge of these with the wear factor show the age.
Once these steps are completed we are ready to start the actual upholstery of the piece. Wish us luck and stay tuned for all the latest updates!!!!
Now Available - Full Length 2 Hour
DIY Upholstery DVD
Have you ever wanted to do Upholstery?! Would you like to recover your own furniture?!
Spirited Lady Boutique is proud to announce our first in a series of Do-It-Yourself Upholstery Videos!!
For our first video we chose to recover a Wing Chair, which had the highest amount of request from our poll and You Tube videos.
37 years of experience in upholstery in this complete 2 hour instructional video - Full of Top Secret Upholstery Techniques!
Also comes with do-it-yourself Upholstery support through our Message Board. Craig is available online for advice and additional instruction if needed.
Available at both
Spirited Lady Naturals Boutique
and
Spirited Lady Home & Garden Boutique
! Just look on the navigation bar for Upholstery DVD.
We hope you enjoy it and would love to hear your comments and feedback!
Rockler Woodworking Hardware" onClick="window.open('/cgi-bin/counter.pl?url=%3Ca%20href%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.shareasale.com%2Fr.cfm%3Fb%3D76999%26u%3D206504%26m%3D12070%26urllink%3D%26afftrack%3D%22%3ERockler%20Woodworking%20Hardware%3C%2Fa%3E&referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spirited-lady-boutique.com%2Fupholstery-sofa.html'); return false;">Rockler Woodworking Hardware for Upholstery
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