Upholstery project



I've been taking upholstery classes in adult education after I head south in the winter. One of the problems I have is finding pieces to work on, since I don't have anything left to recover in my Florida home. So I roam my neighborhood, looking for someone (anyone) who has a piece to work on. My neighbor, Jennifer, had this chair that her mother gave her from her grandmother. It had been sitting in her garage for a year, and her mater was starting to get peeved. Her hubby, didn't want to spend a lot to redo it (MEN!), so she let me redo it with the understanding that if I screwed up, she wouldn't yell at me.



Here's the back view.

                                                                           





The arm had pretty detailing, but I didn't like the finish of the wood, so I stripped it and sanded it down, and waxed it to give it an older beat up look. Then I had to find a fabric that Jen and I would both like that would work with the direction her decorating would take (with some subtle nudging from ME). I found a pretty blue stripe on the Ralph Lauren web site and had some samples sent to me for our approval.





Here it is all beat up to look more beachy. (Is there such a word as beachy? My father would say; no. But this is my blog)

Here we all are in class at the local high school, each at our own work station in the shop classroom.

This is the shop god, Ernesto, our teacher! We are all like baby birds, chirping for his attention. HE KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS UPHOLSTERY STUFF!!!!

So I stripped the chair down to its frame and redid the webbing under the springs. Then I sewed the springs back onto the webbing and tied them together. (I can't believe, after all these years, I now know how to tie springs, except I did it the hard way, and now I know you can use a continuous piece of twine to go across the whole row)

Then I covered the springs with a layer of burlap and stapled it down with my new trusty staple gun. I bought a small compressor from Home Depot for just around $100. I got the staple gun from a vendor on ebay.



Then I added a rolled edge called fox edge



I then placed a layer of foam and covered it all with Dacron, but I don't have pictures of this part, because I have lost my mind and forgot to document this part.

When I reworked the back, I liked the way the shape narrowed at the bottom, so rather than repeat the silhouette of the original upholstery, I followed the outline of the frame. I liked the way it was more wasp wasted.


The way to add buttons to the inside back is to thread them through to the outside back and staple them to the frame. 





I added a contrast welt (piping) around the top of the back and then covered it with the striped fabric. For an added splash of design flair (and I wanted to see if I could do it) I outlined the back with a decorative tape applied with nail head tacks.

I made the tape out of burlap and a blue thread that I sewed on my zigzag sewing machine.

I made another decorative tape ( I am soooo creative) out of some of the blue stripe of the fabric turned inside out. Always check how the back of the fabric looks, as it can be used as a contrast fabric to the front. I applied this tape around the arm openings, rather than use a double welt traditional detail.

I used a double welt around the bottom of the arms

Here's the chair in all its glory before it got its skirt (it has no shame). That's my PT Cruiser in the back, my garage is my workroom.

I love skirts on some chairs, I feel they add a flirty fun feel, so I decided to make my life harder and add one to this chair.



To solve the problem of how to bridge the space over the legs, I worked out this button and loop detail.

Here's the back, outlined with the contrast tape and nail head trim.

So, here's the finished chair, waxed frame, new striped cover and dress-maker's details. I made my friend Jennifer really happy, and I got to do a project and then get it out of my house (since I have no more room).

Linking to:  French Country Cottage

  Between Naps on the Porch

  DIY Home Sweet Home

  Knick of Time Tuesday

  Tuesday's Treasures

Overflowing With Creativity

Transformation Thursday/Shabby Creek Cottage

Read More

Changing a bed with paint

I had a client that wanted to redo her daughters bedroom with a pair of twin beds. Although this was for a college age young lady, she wanted to retain some of the childhood feel for her daughter while reworking the room into a second guest room. I looked all over for a nice pair of beds, but what I wanted didn't fit the bill of what she wanted until I found these on (wait for it...) ebay!

We needed to use a pair of beds that didn't have a big footboard, as there wasn't a lot of room at the end of the beds. I thought the shape of these would lend themselves to a pretty cottage effect if painted. When looking at a bed, make sure to take into account the height of the headboard, as the boxspring and mattress will take up a good 14 to 24 inches (depending on their indivigual thickness) and could cover the headboard's decorative detailing, leaving you with just a small part of the headboard showing. Since my client liked the idea of a painted bed, I wanted to find a pair with a really pretty sillouette.

I felt the carved accents and cutout detail would translate well in a painted bed.

 

I had a lot of fun accenting the details in a lighter paint color to add a little visual interest to the look.  




Here's the bed made up and placed in the room.

 



With both beds set up against a pretty floral wallpaper I chose to go with the old fashioned fabrics I used for the bedskirts and pillows, the room took on a cozy charm (if I do say so myself).

 







Even when girls go off to college, sometimes the Mom has to hold on to their Teddys.

 Linking to: 

Read More

West Palm Beach Master Bedroom

Decorating this room was a joy. I could do what I wanted with NO CLIENTS!!!! (not that clients aren't wonderful, sometimes, now and then, on a good day, when the moon is in the seventh house) This was another ebay adventure, hunting for the great deals, looking for the exact piece, searching for the unexpected. I taught myself how to make a dust ruffle, and found out that Lowe's sells rugs! Click on the picture of my cottage at the right of this column, and it will take you to my website, then click on the project button, and you will see the whole transformation of this room.

If you want to see the pictures on my blog BIGGER, click on them and they will GROW.

Read More

How I covered the boxspring

Now, this only works on a bed that has a foot board that hides the end of the mattress. So I may have misled some of you guys with promises of showing how I covered the box spring. But I have no pride and will do anything to get you all to come on back.

                                                                      

So, I started with the bare mattress and box spring.

One thing that's important to me, is not having a hard edge showing when the fabric wraps around the top edge of the box spring, so I first layered 2 pieces of interlining over the top and side. Interlining is a cotton felt-like fabric used to fill out draperies and to soften fabric lines.

Then, I laid the vintage bark cloth I found on ebay over the interlining and tacked it down with those swirly corkscrew bed skirt pins

This is one of those design tips that a lot of people don't know about, so feel very special that I'm sharing this with you. These little babies, are what keep your dust ruffle from moving all over the place when you make the bed.

Then I flopped the mattress down.................

And made up the bed, voila! upholstered looking box spring!!

Read More

How to make a pillow out of napkins

I promised to post a how to on my pillow sham, so here it is!

 

I found a wonderful vintage linen tablecloth on ebay that I bought to make into a bed skirt for the master bedroom of my West Palm Beach cottage. (To be shown this coming Sunday) It came with a bonus of 9 matching dinner sized napkins. I played around with making a coverlet for the guest bedroom, but landed on the idea of  making a European pillow sham instead.

Seaming four napkins together for each side created a larger than needed square, so I made a 1.5" inset seam around the perimeter, creating a flat flange detail. Then I appliqued the 5th napkin on a diagonal to the front of the pillow to hide the seams that joined the four front napkins

When choosing your linens, choose ones with nice embroidery detailing like these. I am a sucker for handkerchief linen.

I finished the back of the sham with a button closure and some pretty mother of pearl buttons.

                                                                                                                                

This is one of those times when it is great to have a button hole attachment on your sewing machine. The edge of the napkins made a really nice binding for the overlapping fabric.

Later this week I'll show how to make the box spring cover, it's all a conspiracy to make you come back for another visit to my blog. (Is it working??)             

Linking to:  nifty thrifty tuesday

Read More

West Palm Beach guest room

I had so much fun decorating this little bedroom. It gave me an excuse to spend hours wasting time on my computer looking for just the right treasures on ebay. If nothing else it kept my risk of sun cancer down, as I wasn't outside playing like my mother would have made me when I was but a wee girl. To see this jewel of a room, click on the picture of my cottage at the right of this column, and it will take you to my website, then click on the projects button, and you will see the whole megillah.
Later this week I will post the how to pictures of some of the sewing projects in this room.

Read More