I am always on the hunt for treasures! I found this ornate chair at a non-profit thrift shop. I made a donation and loaded this (very) heavy chair in my vehicle. It is super solid, thanks to some repairs and reinforcement someone did at some point.
I started ripping it apart. If you have dust allergies—as I do—this is the worst part. I found horsehair as the original padding. I typically don't keep any of the padding unless the piece is fairly new (mostly due to the allergies!).
There were three layers of fabric. I finally stripped it down to bare bones.
Several of the springs had sprung so I re-tied all of them. There are great tutorials on YouTube for this. I am not an expert by any means. This was only the second chair I've done that needed the springs re-tied.
At this point, there is always the decision to paint or not paint the wood. I never paint over nice wood and the wood on this chair cleaned up really well. It had a nice patina....so no paint!
Just wanted to show how much trash this generated!
All the fabric and padding filled an entire trash bag. I also remove all the tacks and staples. Hitting an old tack or staple when trying to staple new fabric is not a good thing. I try to keep them corralled in a container so they don't wind up in my driveway.
I added new webbing and foam and then used cotton batting to cover the foam. I tacked it in place before I added the fabric.
New padding, webbing and a beautiful fabric really starts to make a difference!
I found this fabric at Hancock Fabrics when they were going out of business. It was 90% off if you bought the remainder of the bolt.
I also bought a ton of trim at 90% off as well. I have plenty of fabric for this project and plenty for another project.
I watched a lot of You Tube videos while doing this one! When I get stuck and don't know how to upholster something, I can always find a video to teach me how to do it.
I was very pleased with the outcome. Overall I estimate I spent about 12 hours on this project. There was a lot of learning that happened during this project. This little beauty went off to the shop just before Christmas. Fingers crossed that it will sell! Update: it sold!
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