This was in June 2015 I think and I had a lot of stress trying to make sure I would
- Not keep the furniture out of commission for too long, which would keep my family from having a place to sit and gather
- Not taking so long to finish the project that school started, basically making it almost impossible for me to finish within a reasonable time
- Working so fast I got too tired to finish or injuring myself by going to fast
Anyway so yes I do enjoy upholstery but this was a pretty nail-biter project because of the logistics & time constraints.
The first step was to remove the old upholstery whilst preserving all the parts I wanted to keep. Normally when re-upholstering, you don't just strip it to the frame and start over completely, you see what can be preserved if it's in good condition, since upholstery supplies, though basically made of actual fluff are still pretty expensive. In fact when re-upholstering drop-in seats, like the ones you see on wooden dining chairs with padded seats, you usually don't even have to remove the old fabric; you can simply put new fabric over the old. This saves a lot of time and energy removing old staples.
So all the fabric and staples had to be removed first. Staples are cantankerous and tend to break, necessitating the frequent use of pliers to remove partial staples. You can't just rip the fabric off, not only because the staples are holding it on, but also because you won't be able to get the new fabric to stay straight and nice most likely without removing the staples.
So after you have removed all the fabric & staples you have to check over all the stuffing and layers to see if there is damage. Turns out the stuffing was in pretty good shape but I did have to fix the wood as the benderboard had gotten cracked on the arms of the sofa.
That's it for this time. Next time we'll talk about how I re-finished the wood on the furniture.
Blessings,
--Pam