Upholstery class... vintage armchair transformation

Upholstery class... vintage armchair transformation

  

Found a beautiful but tired Parker Knoll arm chair for £20...

What a great opportunity to learn a new skill and get a bit of my own fabric on display!

Now, my lovely Dad is a bit of a clever stick when it comes to this kind of thing, he's totally self taught (in the days before you tube!) and has upholstered a few armchairs in the past so what a great way to spend a bit of time together and create something cool...

Once the fabric was stripped off and sorted to use as templates we found that the stuffing and actual frame of the chair was sound so that made things a bit easier. We painted and waxed the legs in a matt black to give it a modern edge to go with my crazy modern fabric!

   

To be honest it was more straightforward than I thought, using the original fabric as a template and gradually piecing the chair back together in reverse order... straightforward but very time consuming!!

      

I learnt a clever hack to get a crisp edge along the top of the back using thin cardboard and had to learn a hidden stitch to hand sew down the sides keeping the fabric nice and taut. The final piece of the puzzle was piping around the centre of the cushion pad which did hurt my brain for a while until suddenly it made sense...

And voila! what a transformation! I have used my new aerial surfer print fabric and I think it looks pretty amazing...

Although I will not be offering upholstery services, I will be offering a range of fabrics by the metre for use on your own projects!

  

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