Adventures in decorating... Part 1

As I mentioned, I started a small business in 2013, without really meaning to.  It has been a wonderful experience that I am enjoying very much.  My original plan for my life was architecture.  I wanted to design homes, to design practical homes, that had windows in the right places and didn't waste space and made sense to every mother on the planet.  Then my life's goal shifted to trying to figure out how be a godly mother before my children graduated from college.  However, my desire to design and create did not diminish as I grew older.  I never would have thought I would be given the opportunity to circle back to my first love... all things home design.

My first adventure began with upholstery.  I have several upholstery adventures on my resume now,  and with each adventure, came knowledge.

I started with my antique store find pictured in the previous blog.

Lesson 1: Old chairs are made of really hard wood!  I tried to use my little manual staple gun that I had used several times in the past for headboards, dining chairs, upholstered benches - you know wrap and staple stuff.  That was a joke; those staples came to an abrupt halt as soon as they struck wood.  So, I decided to invest in a pneumatic staple gun. (That's fancy for "uses a compressor.")  Life saver.  I bought a Bostitch, refurbished, off Ebay for about half the price of a new one.  Of course, you do need a compressor, which thankfully my husband had received as a Christmas gift a few years ago.  You don't need a huge compressor.  I have a 3.5-Gal. 135 PSI Pancake Compressor which runs around $100.

Lesson 2: The angle of your gun matters.  Now, this revelation may sound a bit obvious, but when you are shooting from the front to back while in the front, it looks great until you turn it around.  It didn't occur to me that the back of my chair is open and the ends of my staples might come through.  The edge I had to staple through was less than 1/4" wide, and I had to be very careful to angle the gun so the ends of the staples stayed in the wood of the chair.


I then moved on to a client's glider.  Yes, a client.  My first non-friend, paying client.  And thus began my business.

Lesson 3: Take time to study the print of the fabric.  Even the busiest pattern runs a certain way.  If you look closely at this print, the distance between the smaller circles and the large circle is not equal for all circles.  I initially ran this fabric the wrong way.  As a stood back and studied the print (which I should have done first) something was just not right.  So, I bought another yard and fixed my mistake.  The result was a happy client and a wiser upholsterer.  I am now fb friends with this client and get to see pictures of the new baby for which this glider was made.  I loved that I was a small part of bringing home a precious baby girl.

Next were some wrought iron chairs, again for a client (and friend).  Now this was a wrap and staple job, but with piping.

Lesson 4: Your sewing machine probably has a piping foot.  Use it.  It will make your life easier.  (That paperwork that came with your sewing machine is actually quite useful.  If you have thrown it out, you can get another one off the internet.)

Then, because a friend tagged me on a request for re-upholsterer, another client found me.  This time for a slipper chair.

Lesson 5:  Chairs have a center, and so do most prints.  Fold your your pattern piece (the old piece you removed) in half vertically and then horizontally.  That will give you your center of the old piece, or pattern piece.  You should mark it somehow.  (I used a straight pin, so I could feel when my centers were matched up.)  Decide what will be the center of your fabric and mark it.  Now it may be very obvious what it the center is, but like on the print above there were two possible centers because there were two different fleur patterns.

Lesson 6: Upholstery thread is worth the few extra cents, and it is necessary.  With a chair like this, the fit is a snug one.  During the process of "getting it right," you will take it off and on several times.  A strong upholstery thread is almost impossible to break and will save you the headache of re-stitching something.

The next chair was another first - my first repeat client.  They were going to drop off some fabric to finish up some pillows, and I returned home to find that fabric and this chair.  Surprise!  This chair was full of new adventures.

Lesson 7: You must invest in a tack puller.  When I found out that they only cost $3.99 at Joann's I could not believe I had not bought one sooner.  This tool will save you from this:

War wounds.  This is the first chair for which, one, I had the most trouble removing the old staples, and two, encountered metal tack strips.  (I literally described these things to my mom as the spike strips cops use to flatten the tires of fleeing criminals.)  The tack puller I bought looks like a flat head screw driver shaped like a V.  Because the head is V'd, it allows access to even the most narrow, sunken staples.  I am so happy I learned Lesson 7; too bad it wasn't Lesson 1!

The most recent re-upholstery job was for a friend.  It was a total transformation.  She had been given this chair by her father.  It was a warm floral, but she is like me - loves design and doesn't mind change.  So, she wanted to keep the chair, but update the fabric to match her new decor.  This fabric was beautiful and felt amazing, and it was bought locally at Hobby Lobby, which was a plus when we needed an extra yard.  I am thankful she trusted me with this project.

Lesson 8: The eye will connect the dots.  The corners of the diamond shape will line up in the mind.  Therefore, you must center the pattern left to right.

Lesson 9: Not all of the hardware will be able to be reused.  You can find many upholstery supplies on Ebay, but, of course, there will be a wait to receive them.  When in the middle of a project, the last thing I want to have to do is put it aside and wait for a shipment.  Another option, if you live in the Atlanta area, is a company in Norcross called Upholstery Supply of America.  I have yet to visit, but I am planning a trip to stock up on the supplies I have encountered so far that I know are hard to reuse, like cardboard tack strip and pli-grip/flex-grip strips. 

Lesson 10: The finished product is worth every frustration.  Be patient.  Don't give up.  Don't rip anything apart!  Being able to take that "after" picture and know that you have been able to take something that otherwise would be trashed and turn it back into a piece of furniture that is loved again yields an unbelievable feeling of accomplishment.

Each an every upholstery project has been a challenge and an opportunity to learn and grow.  I am in my happy place.

This piece is sitting in my garage waiting on the word "boy" or "girl."  I found this at Goodwill and knew right away I wanted to tackle it.  A couple of texts later and a trip back to the Goodwill, and a friend's baby has the grooviest rocker in town.  I am anxiously awaiting the green light on this one.  Check back for the "after."

There are several other projects waiting in the wings that I am excited to complete... a wingback with multiple fabrics and a tufted scalloped wingback.  It just gets "gooder" and "gooder."

I would love to help with your next upholstery project, from answering questions, to just doing the job for you, or anything in between.  Lets turn your chair into the "after" you envision.