Teamwork

What do you get when you cross an upholsterer with a woodworker?

A team that can build their own amazing custom furniture! 

We're learning anyway. :)

So, we had this chair that Shawn's parents gave us. I knew I wanted to recover it, but we also got the idea to make a matching ottoman.

"6-8 inches? More like 6-8 snowflakes"

Is it really the middle of January already? We haven't even had a good snow yet! There was quite the blizzard predicted for last week, but we only got plummeting temperatures and a few flurries. Shawn was disappointed.

Now that the holidays are over it's nice to settle into a more normal routine. I think as newly weds we're still working on what normal is, but there are some things that have to happen, like cooking and cleaning, and church, and jobs. 

This past summer people kept asking where I would work after I got married, and I knew a part time job would be nice, but with everything else going on, job hunting wasn't a priority. My mother-in-law knew a lady who did upholstery in town, and mentioned this to me, but we didn't know if she was looking for help or not. 

Mission: Mismatched made...I need another m word...

Magnificent? 

that sounds a little boastful :)

Masterpiece?

Mystery?

Marvel?

I give up. :)

While staying at Shawn's parents house this week, I had the opportunity to do an upholstery project for someone who goes to their church. I guess a few people gave the gal my name when she was looking for someone to reupholster a pair of chairs she had.

Mission: $2 Deal

A large percent of the upholstery projects I do are for other people, either special orders, or redoing something to sell.

But now when having a home of my own is not so far away, and Shawn has found an apartment that needs furnishing, I can put my upholstery skills to use on something I'll be the one enjoying. :)  Well, Shawn first, but eventually the both of us.

He has a few things already, one of which is a dining table. But it needed chairs, so I've been on the hunt for some, and yesterday Mom and I went out adventuring together and came across these.

There was five of them, and only $2 each!!

Yes, they aren't very pretty, but I could change that.

Fit for a Parlor

Free stuff is cool, isn't it? Especially when it looks like this.
A friend gave me these a while back, and I finally got the opportunity to work on them!

Yes, they're in rough shape, but aren't they beautiful?

Mission: Mad for Plaid

Please excuse Baby Shadow. She thinks every new piece of furniture that come in the house is her new throne. 

This chair was my newest special order. It has a really cute shape, and the fabric was really fun too, but the chair had seen better days, and what was up with that lumpy seat?

Botanical Beauty

That's right, Ivy, another upholstery project for you to hinder, I mean, help me with. :)

Never Let Your Cat Do Upholstery with You

Have any of you heard of this book before? It was a favorite of mine growing up and tells the story of girl who lets her cat make lunch for her, and finds some pretty interesting sandwiches (mouse sandwich anyone?)

Well, my most recent upholstery project is the first one I've done since Ivy came to our house. She found it very interesting, and while I doubt she was trying to help, she certainly attempted to get involved.

Mission: Channel Back Side Chair

Hold your horses!

Before you groan and say, "No, not another channel back chair!", just keep reading.

But you wouldn't do that, would you? 

Of course not. You're too curious and want to see what this cute little chair looked like once I finished with it. 

Change the Channel

Last Spring, some friends who were moving gave me this little channel back chair. 

A Few Finished Projects...

This has been our last week at home before we head off to Bible school.

Are we excited yet?

Well, saying goodbye to church family and friends makes us feel a bit like this.

Weston (a little frind of ours): "Do you really have to go?"

Becca: "We already gave them our money."

Weston: "Well, lucky for them!"

Although, once we have everything packed in my little car and hit the road, I'm sure we'll feel more like this.

Besides packing, Becca and I have also been busy finishing up some projects. 

For a year or so, we've had a side chair stored in our bedroom wanting reupholstering. When I found it, I actually didn't mind the color, but the velvet was quite worn, and had an unpleasant tendancy to shed. :P 

It has such a cute little shape, and while I was ordering some things for my last upholstery job, I came across some clearance fabric that looked lovely.

Its simple shape made it pretty quick to do, but I stained the legs first, as they were a bit rough looking. Freezing weather kept me out of the garage, but it was nearly as cold working in the ventilated basement.

Dad: "Who left the basement window open?"
Bethany: "Oops!"

I used the leftover stain from my desk, which turned out a little lighter on the legs of the chair.

A friend came over while I was just about finished with it, and decided she wanted it.
 It's neat to see it go off to a home so soon!

The other thing I wanted to get done was to redo my work basket.

We probably picked it up at a garage sale or thrift store, and it has seen numerous crochet projects and a few knitting ones lately. 

As it slowly falls apart, I've restitched seams and reattached the lining in places, but what if I gave it an entirely new look?

Taking it apart was fun, and its clever design really amazed me.

Both the lining and the outside consisted of only two pieces of fabric each, and the inside pocket was made with a simple fold.

I found my new fabrics in the jumble of the sewing room; a pale blue swiss dot and a fun floral corduroy I'd been saving for something.

Sewing it on the wood frame proved to be a bit tricky, but with a little persistence, I got the hang of it.

 As for what project it will contain next, I'm thinking of starting this while at school.

A Beatles blanket! Isn't it darling? Those little granny squares will be easy to make in the free time I might have.

Becca's turn!
Hmmmm.... Where should I start?
Ever since I learned about the languge of flowers, I was enchanted. Although a boquet of flowers can't convey a very specific message, like:
'The rebel leader is dead. Come to the docks at 8 p.m., bring lighter fluid and a large tomato."
(I remembered this from something I saw on Pinterest, but I couldn't find the actual pin)
It would be a fancinating means of communication for a story world.....

It's still a sweet and romantic practice I think should be brought back.
I fell in love with the meaning of yellow tulips, though I read the meaning has evolved over time.
The current meaning is: There is sunshine in your smile.
Isn't that the sweetest thing?

It was a while before I settled on the right medium for this idea, but embroidery seemed perfect.
I started it sometime in September, and I finished it this week... talk about procrastination.  :)

I designed it on my favorite site; PicMonky, painted in the color blocks and the tulips with acrylic paint mixed with fabric medium, then embroidered the lettering, outlined the flowers, and finally it became a pillow.

Now for some close-ups :)

 

Also, I have been trying my hand at some watercolors. I loved watercolors when I was little, using all the colors and painting huge dripping rainbows.  :)

I pulled out an old set of paints last weekend and just played around.

Mom and Dad got me a new set of paints and some other supplies to take to school, it will be fun to experiment and practice this new hobby.
I'd love to be able paint like this:

via Pinterest

And illustrate my stories someday.

Well, our next post should be from school. 

Maybe we could do a tour of our little dorm room. :)

Allons-y!

Mission: Mod Vinyl

No, not that kind of vinyl. 

What I'm talking about is my newest upholstery project of three vinyl chairs.

Mission: Preferably Pastels

by: Bethany

This was a very fun special order, as Carole, our client/customer (is that the right word?) said we could do whatever we liked with the dresser and nightstand"...preferably a pastel, and not pink."

There's quite a range of colors that aren't pink, and finding  one that didn't look too "baby" was a bit tricky. 

We finally settled on this pale turquoise called "Transparent" that complemented the fabric Carole gave us for the chair.

Before:

The dresser sustained some injuries on it's way to our house, but Becca reattached the corner with a strong wood epoxy!

We copied the gold paint along the edges, but used white instead, and spray painted the hardware to match.

After:

I can't quite figure old how old this chair is. I know it's vintage, but I can't find anything quite like it online. The barrel back seems to be a midcentury modern style, so it could be circa 1940-1960, or at least that's my amateur guess.

Before:

The narrow groove where the original fabric was stapled was too small for my staple gun.

So I stapled just a bit higher, and then attached three rows of piping to cover the staples and the edge of the fabric.

After:

Last fall, I did another chair for Carol with the same fabric. These two will be such a cute pair, as their styles are so different, yet they'll match with their white wood and gold/yellow fabric.

Another mission accomplished!

Mission: 1940's Sam Moore Chair

by: Bethany

This upholstery project has been my second special order for someone (sorry, no pictures of the first). Finding pieces to fix up and sell is fun, but then there is finding buyers, and having space for a growing inventory.

 Doing a job for someone else has it's own challenges, but it's rewarding too.

When people ask, "Hey, I have this (insert type of furniture here). Would you be interested in taking a look at it?" it's almost like, "Your mission, should you choose to accept it…"

So, my mission was this:

I was told it was a Queen Anne style chair, but doing some research, I came up with pictures like this.

Similar, but not quite right…

I found that the style of the back of the chair is called "channel back", so looking into that deeper, I found this.

That was it! 

The site said it was a 1940's Sam Moore chair. I don't know if Sam Moore was the designer, or just the name of the style.

The chair had been reupholstered before, so this wasn't the original fabric.

It was well loved, by both people, and cats. :)

So, the first step was disassembling the chair.

Pulling off the old fabric meant yanking out lots of staples, and ripping off pieces that were glued down.

All of the trim around the back of of chair was both stapled and glued.

Yup, lots of fun.

This part is actually my favorite. I love seeing the bare bones of the piece and how it was put together.

Now, I just had to remember how everything went, so I could put it back the right way. :)

The fabric my client (my boss, too) chose was a nice medium weight fabric called "Symphony Evening" from Warehouse Fabrics Inc.

It took 5 yards of it to do the chair.

The most complicated part was the channel back.

Burlap backing

I took it apart section by section; numbering the batting pieces so I could put them back in the right order.

I used the old pieces for patterns.

Once I had it sewed together, I replaced the batting and reattached the burlap.

The next step was replacing the batting on the arms of the chair.

Again, I used the old pieces of fabric for the pattern for the arms and front of the chair.

I also used a new piece of fabric to cover the batting on the seat.

Then I fit the back piece in, and stapled it in place.

I attached the back piece of fabric to the top first, and then around the sides of the arms.

 A strip of cardboard helped guide where I put staples.

Folding the fabric around the arm.

  Then came the upholstery nails…. They were both fun and annoying. They give the piece a really elegant look, but they can be a little temperamental when you're nailing them in.

I went to lots of different hardware stores looking for the right kind of nail. I knew I wanted a dark finish to match the deep brown color in the fabric, but most stores only carried brass nails. 

I found these nails at Walmart, but it was frustrating because they would only have two or three packages on the shelf at a time, and each package only had 24 tacks. So, I had to make quite a few trips to get all the nails I needed.

For the seat cushion, I made my own piping for the very first time.

After reading some tutorials, I found that there's actually a special sewing machine foot for piping, which I didn't have, so I made do with my zipper foot.

The difference is that the piping foot has a groove designed to follow the piping as you sew. With the zipper foot, I had to carefully guide the machine, but the foot allowed to sew right up besides it.

It was a fun learning experience.

All that was left now was to finish nailing the back!

My workspace = the dining room
It's a very multi functional space. :)

Everything seemed like it was done, and my boss was coming to pick it up, when I realized that I hadn't replaced the fabric on the bottom of the chair!

There we go!

Before 

After

Mission: Accomplished.