Merry Christmas everyone! I found out yesterday that there are really big milestones coming up at the house in the next couple weeks, so I wanted to get this update out before there are more important updates to share. Plus the brick work is nearly done, and the wall texture was done Monday night! I want to wait for the mortar to dry before I post pictures of the brick - it makes a huge difference.
So, you might remember the nugget's wingback chair, which was my first attempt at reupholstering anything more complex than a flat dining seat. It went really well - maybe too well - and I think I went into this second project a bit too confident. It was hard... much harder than I was expecting.
I bought this antique settee (or my new favorite word, sofette!) at a local antique shop. It's about 200 years old, and I got a great deal on it. I got an estimate to have it professionally reupholstered, and the quote was $625, excluding fabric. That's when I decided to learn how to reupholster myself! I purchased this more for the look than for sitting, but it's going in our new home office which will be done in peacock/jewel tones.
Here she is before: (she's 60" long, so a 2 seat sofa)
There were sooooooooooo many staples in this piece, and there were multiple layers of fabric from reupholstering over the years. I may have taken the easy way out and not removed all the fabric if I didn't need to get under the hood to fix the structure and springs. But I did need to make those fixes, so here she is all stripped down.
The frame was in need of some additional support as it was pretty rickety, and there were a few springs that had gone awry. And once I got through those hurdles, I thought I was home free.
So I tightened up the frame. I hand tied the springs back in place. I vacuumed out 200 years of dust and gunk from the inside and then I got her stained, painted, and sealed. I wanted the frame a distressed white with strong black showing through. So I stained it ebony first. I figured wood this old could use a good coat of stain anyway. Then I reused the white paint leftover from the dining chairs. Some distressing, and a coat of poly-crylic.
And then I thought I was ALMOST home free. I decided I wanted to create a button tufted back, where it was not previously tufted. Tufting was new to me, so that scared me a bit. It turns out it's not scary - just really hard manual labor. My fingers were sore from pulling and tying and from stabbing myself with decorator needles repeatedly. It's pretty remarkable I didn't impale myself on one of the 8" needles now that I think of it. Actually with tufting, it turns out I found a chore I hate more than making my double welt trim, which I made all by myself this time! All 15 yards of it, and it was a lot easier the second time around. My new thorn is I hate covering buttons with fabric. I did 30 of them, and sadly only used 19 I think. It took me most of a Saturday to cover the buttons. I need to think about my future projects - it could be worth the time savings to invest in a button cover machine. :) I didn't capture any photos of the tufting process as I could have used another set of hands just tufting, let alone trying to get pictures! I followed the same process as a million tutorials you can find online. By the way, I tackled the double welt all by myself this time - all 15 yards of it! Yay for me!!
I went with peacock blue microsuede. And in one sense, a solid fabric is much easier to work with because you don't have to account for the pattern when you cut out your pieces and attach. however, with solid fabric, flaws seem more obvious to me. The curves of this piece were also pretty challenging. It's not perfect - I thought I'd do better on this piece than my first chair, but I think this one took a step backwards. That said, I'm still happy with it. A lot of the problem was trying to power through quickly at the end, and my workmanship suffered. I'll put it back in storage and when I take it out I'm sure my eye won't be drawn to all the imperfections. (I hope)
ok enough of all that... here she is!
Can't wait to show her off in the new office! I've been putting off another office project since this summer, but it might be time to tackle this sofette's big brother - the giant storage armoire. It's just getting painted, but did I mention it's GIANT?? Stay tuned for big house updates in the coming week or two!!!
So, you might remember the nugget's wingback chair, which was my first attempt at reupholstering anything more complex than a flat dining seat. It went really well - maybe too well - and I think I went into this second project a bit too confident. It was hard... much harder than I was expecting.
I bought this antique settee (or my new favorite word, sofette!) at a local antique shop. It's about 200 years old, and I got a great deal on it. I got an estimate to have it professionally reupholstered, and the quote was $625, excluding fabric. That's when I decided to learn how to reupholster myself! I purchased this more for the look than for sitting, but it's going in our new home office which will be done in peacock/jewel tones.
Here she is before: (she's 60" long, so a 2 seat sofa)
There were sooooooooooo many staples in this piece, and there were multiple layers of fabric from reupholstering over the years. I may have taken the easy way out and not removed all the fabric if I didn't need to get under the hood to fix the structure and springs. But I did need to make those fixes, so here she is all stripped down.
The frame was in need of some additional support as it was pretty rickety, and there were a few springs that had gone awry. And once I got through those hurdles, I thought I was home free.
 |
| So you can see wood filler in the curve cracks, but do you also see it EVERYWHERE there were staples? it was so old and reupholstered so many times that the wood was just crumbling where the staples should go. |
So I tightened up the frame. I hand tied the springs back in place. I vacuumed out 200 years of dust and gunk from the inside and then I got her stained, painted, and sealed. I wanted the frame a distressed white with strong black showing through. So I stained it ebony first. I figured wood this old could use a good coat of stain anyway. Then I reused the white paint leftover from the dining chairs. Some distressing, and a coat of poly-crylic.
And then I thought I was ALMOST home free. I decided I wanted to create a button tufted back, where it was not previously tufted. Tufting was new to me, so that scared me a bit. It turns out it's not scary - just really hard manual labor. My fingers were sore from pulling and tying and from stabbing myself with decorator needles repeatedly. It's pretty remarkable I didn't impale myself on one of the 8" needles now that I think of it. Actually with tufting, it turns out I found a chore I hate more than making my double welt trim, which I made all by myself this time! All 15 yards of it, and it was a lot easier the second time around. My new thorn is I hate covering buttons with fabric. I did 30 of them, and sadly only used 19 I think. It took me most of a Saturday to cover the buttons. I need to think about my future projects - it could be worth the time savings to invest in a button cover machine. :) I didn't capture any photos of the tufting process as I could have used another set of hands just tufting, let alone trying to get pictures! I followed the same process as a million tutorials you can find online. By the way, I tackled the double welt all by myself this time - all 15 yards of it! Yay for me!!
I went with peacock blue microsuede. And in one sense, a solid fabric is much easier to work with because you don't have to account for the pattern when you cut out your pieces and attach. however, with solid fabric, flaws seem more obvious to me. The curves of this piece were also pretty challenging. It's not perfect - I thought I'd do better on this piece than my first chair, but I think this one took a step backwards. That said, I'm still happy with it. A lot of the problem was trying to power through quickly at the end, and my workmanship suffered. I'll put it back in storage and when I take it out I'm sure my eye won't be drawn to all the imperfections. (I hope)
ok enough of all that... here she is!
Can't wait to show her off in the new office! I've been putting off another office project since this summer, but it might be time to tackle this sofette's big brother - the giant storage armoire. It's just getting painted, but did I mention it's GIANT?? Stay tuned for big house updates in the coming week or two!!!
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