Upholstering a stool.

Today I decided to trot along to an "Upholster a Chair" workshop, ran by Sustainable Carlisle.

The class was free, you just paid for any NEW materials that you used.  We were to take along a chair.

Now, as it happens, in my Father's garage was a chair that I had started a while ago.  One of my many unfinished projects.  So he dug it out for me.

I had started to strip it down, so the plan was to get the seat re-upholstered and deco-patch the actual chair.

My friend Laura was going to come along with me and the plan was to share the chair, but whilst out shopping the day before I found a fabulous little stool in a charity shop for just £5.00 so I couldn't resist.

So Laura took on the chair, and I started on the stool.

This is how my stool started out.

First of all I took the seat pad out, well it just fell out really.

Then came the difficult job of getting all the staples out.  First there was a black cover held on with staples every inch or so, but once that came off I discovered hundreds of the blooming things, so it took me quite a while.

Once done I had to pull some cotton felt to fit, this was to pad the chair out and replace the old smelly sponge padding that had been on it originally.

Next was to choose some material, I choose a rich burgundy pattern as it will match the deco in my living room.

Tacking the material in place was a two step job, the first lot of tacks are temporary so you can get a good tug on the material to make it nice and taught.  My seat pad wasn't quite as taut as it should be, but I was happy enough with it.

The corners were tricky though, having to tack and trim, tack and trim, until it looked neat and tidy.

And there we have it, the seat pad ready to pop back into the stool frame.  :)

I will be doing something with the frame too, but not quite decided what yet.

Now for Laura's chair.

As I said, I had already started to strip it down, I sandpapered a lot of the frame and removed the material and padding, but the big job was to remove all the nails, for that, Laura needed a big girl's hammer!  (being advised by Gill Curwen from Sustainable Carlisle)

As the plan is to deco-patch the chair in black & white, we needed a colour seat that would compliment.  Between us we decided on the greeny colour.

Now to pad the wood with cotton felt and tack on the material.

Finishing off the corners with some really good whacks.

Laura and her chair.

The rest of the class with their chairs.