I Reupholstered a Chair!!!

With the guidance of my hero "Star" I reupholstered a rocking chair today.

From 9:00 - 3:30

I absolutely love how it turned out, but my sincere advice to you my dear readers is to pay someone to do it for you.  It's hard.  It may look easy,,,,(I thought it would be), but it's really, really labor intensive and you must have a lot of patience and the right tools

Here is the rocker before

and this is what I stepped on trying to strip the fabric off to paint the rocker.  It really, really hut bad.  I had to sit down and pull it out of my heal.

More advice....wear shoes when upholstering a piece of furniture

After painting it a taupe color

off to Lake Oconee Upholstery!

There's Star!

first, I had not stripped everything off of the chair so it took me about an hour to do that

like this stuff.  What a pain in the butt.

and this stuff.   But I was determined!!!

So first comes the measuring

We measured length and width

I was using an inexpensive vinyl I found at Ocho for 5.99 a yard.

find the center of the front and back

We laid the fabric down, and slit those triangles in half all the way to the arms

I started stapling underneath.  Star showed me how to "cheat" with a VERY hot dryer to make the vinyl stretch and get all the wrinkles out.  You have to pull really hard

Finished the bottom!!!!

Now I measured the top up and down and side to side.  Just the front.

in the works

I had to use that hot blow dryer a lot because I needed to keep the wrinkles out

Getting there!

this is after wrapping and stapling the front part

Star made me the welting

See this stuff? yuck. but it's a lifesaver for upholsterers everywhere.  It's called ply grip.  I hate it.

But it works wonderfully!

First I stapled the welting completely around the back

Then I stapled the ply grip on.  The concept (which I forgot to take a picture of, is this.  You measure and cut a piece for the back.  Find the center and cut a pattern from that.  Then you let those little teeth catch the fabric and bend the tack over

I am SO mad at myself for not picturing this part.

I feel horrible....

well sort  of.

Sorry.

So here it is!  tada!

Have a great night y'all!

kb