anthropology

This was my first try at upholstery. Yes, really. I know “everyone” says you should start with a chair or footstool, and they’re right.

Being the skeptic that I am, I originally pegged my $75 Craigslist score as an early 1900s reproduction, but in my heart I secretly wished it was an antique. There was no horsehair inside and it had been reupholstered several times since the original fabric, but there were no staples. It also had about four kinds of upholstery nails in it, some of them so irregular I couldn’t imagine modern manufacturing turning them out. In some places there were more tacks than wood, and the wood was crumbling. The joints were loose, so I worked glue into them and drove long screws through them (I had help from a friend who had done furniture restoration before). Once we were done it was actually remarkably sturdy. The springs were fine — someone had done a good job hand tying them. I was pretty fascinated by them because I’d always wondered what was actually inside a couch.

Things took a turn for the quirky when I went to buy padding. I used newspaper to trace out the shapes of the cushions and set off to Bonnie Foam Rubber. The shop turned out to be run by an adorable, tiny, old man who took about an hour and a half to cut out my pattern and told me stories about Boston over the last 70 years and his lifelong business in the shop. He told me that everything, even boutique custom upholstery, was done with staples since the 1950s — they were easier to set, less damaging to wood, and held better than upholstery tacks. So, he advised, my couch had to be pre-1950s.

At some point, ennervated by my progress, I started researching my next project and found … my couch! The woman who had ripped off the upholstery in hopes of doing it herself (no loss, you’ll see if you click through) had posted on Apartment Therapy wondering about fabric options. She thought it was original 1880s. Very cool.

first try

The first thing I did was to strip the glazed finish off. Most of the wood turned out to be a medium-to-dark tone with beautiful grain and spectacular carvings. They really popped without the original milky finish, so my dad suggested Danish oil. I was too nervous about the blemishes showing — there were some big cracks and badly glued seams from a previous repair — so I tried a dark lacquer to even out the color. It came out great!

I then attempted my first and second try at reupholstering. It didn’t come out so great. Not knowing any better, I had assumed that higher-density foam was better … instead it didn’t conform to the shape of the couch and made all attempts at buttoning impossible.

[tiffany blue pic]

third time’s the charm

At this point, the online DIY community failed me. While upholstery tutorials abound on the internet, I couldn’t find anyone who had done something more complicated than a cheap sofa using a staple gun and some spare sheets, or maybe a dining room chair. I ended up ordering The Complete Upholsterer by Carol Burke. I’m glad I did — much like my favorite cookbook, the Joy of Cooking, TCU is fun just to read. It gives complete, exacting instructions for all kinds of things you’ll never need to do, from hand-tying springs to stuffing your own couch with horsehair. It focuses on archival, museum-quality upholstery for restoration, which means no staples and loose cotton that’s stitched down, and involves intermediate constructs like sewing a “muslin” (basically you reupholster the chair twice, like a lady wearing a slip under her dress, or a pillowcase liner.) It was awesome to read about, even if I didn’t really want to try it.

Armed with all the information I could ever possibly want, I developed my own plan of attack involving softer low-density foam from JoAnn, polyester quilting batting, and a huge amount of red cotton fabric from IKEA. (The high-density stuff from Bonnie Rubber was long gone.) I actually tracked down some of the tools Ms. Burke mentions — a tack hammer, upholstery tacks (they still make them, and they’re great for corners!), and giant buttoning needles that look straight out of a medieval torture chamber. At this point, I re-imagined my project as a sort of Asian-Victorian hybrid and repainted the frame in black lacquer.

I don’t know why, since I failed miserably at placing three buttons in the first iteration, but I suddenly developed a burning need to button the back — 24 times, in fact.

The summer progressed, I picked upholstery tacks out of the soles of every pair of my flip flops, I nearly developed carpal tunnel from my staple gun, and finally, I was done.

Phew! Next time I’ll do a stool.