A Do-It-Yourself Job for Inept Household Taskers, Like Me
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| cherry dining chair |
There is not really a long list of do-it-yourself tasks at which I show any skill. Plumbing and electrical jobs, however small, I leave to those who know what they’re doing, but there are some little jobs around the house that I enjoy doing, however slowly, with the result that I save a little bit of money and can tell my friends, “Yes, I did that myself.” One of those tasks is simple upholstery of chairs. I’m not talking about complicated wing chairs, car seats, or sofas, but simple desk chair, or dining chair jobs for which a staple gun and scissors are all that is required.
The book that I believe is the best for instruction of beginners, like me, is SIMPLY UPHOLSTERY written by the editors of SUNSET BOOKS. If you go to Amazon.com, you’ll see the book at under $10 and can read eleven reviews by other readers. I like the book, because it gives easy steps to easy upholstery jobs and then some information on more complex challenges of more advanced upholstery tasks.
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| 19th century French chair |
It’s surprising how a new piece of fabric on an old chair can change the character of a room through color and pattern. It’s very easy to go on line to purchase fabric at good prices, and with a staple gun, you can finish a chair in no time. I’ll include here some photos of chairs that I have done, but I’ll start with the most complicated challenge I tackled, which was a 19th Century French arm chair given to me by an old friend. I chose a grey silk striped damask material and measured the surfaces I would be covering, bought the roll of material, and the nails and trim. I cut the material for each surface, folded it under just an inch as I went along and used many dozens of small upholstery nails to attach the fabric to the wood. I did this for the back, the arms and the seat, and then took the trim, which covers the nails, and sewed it on. That’s the part that took the longest, but the result was a chair that looked very respectable, so that when friends found out I had done the job, they were wowed. By the way, stripes are one of the most difficult patterns to use in upholstering, because they can shift easily if not placed properly from the beginning and tightened well.
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| silk upholstery |
The other chairs I have done are simple, because only the seat had to be covered, and the material was folded under so that no nails or trim were necessary. The seat part of the chair can easily be removed with a screw driver in most cases and covered by the fabric, folded under, tightened, and stapled as you go along (checking the position of the fabric design along the way too), and finally putting the seat back and tightening the screws. I have used stabalized silk for all the upholstering I have done, mainly due to its strength and sheen. Its being “stabalized” just means that for upholstery purposes, the silk has been adhered to a cotton backing, which makes it easier to work with and adds strength for long wear. The 19th Century French chair I upholstered in 1987, and it has worn quite well. The other chair photos here are from very simple jobs that required no complicated folding around corners. Anyone can do that kind of upholstery, as long as you have a staple gun, because you fold, tighten and staple until you’ve gone all the way around the seat bottom. Paying someone to do even that simple job can be rather expensive, but aside from the savings, It’s just fun to tell people that you did the work yourself. JB
