Parlour Chair Makeover: Prepping the Frame & Applying Jute Webbing

Last week I picked up a chair from from a guy in Fowler's Corners on one of my trips to Peterborough.  It looked like someone had started the chair as a DIY project and then lost steam (What?  I have no idea what that looks like!)  They'd completely stripped down the chair and succeeded in stripping off half of the original finish, but that was it.  That being said, that's still a lot of work!  I snapped up the frame for $25 and tossed it into the car.

When I got back to the workshop, I stripped off the rest of the lacquer and peeling finish and gave it a good sanding by hand.   As per usual, I forgot to take a real "before" picture...so the above will have to do.

 I wasn't sure how I was going to refinish the wood, but after the sanding I realised it wasn't in the greatest shape to stain and seal, so I opted to give it an aged look with an all natural homemade stain and some dry brushing with latex paint.


The paint dried very quickly as it soaked into the wood and once it was dry I brushed on a quick coat of Miss Mustard Seed's clear furniture wax.  I buffed it, and then threw the frame in the car again.

It's so easy to toss a chair around when it ain't nothin' but a frame!









The next day I applied a second coat of wax and gave it a good buffing.  That's when I realised I should snap some photos!  In the close ups of the arms you can see the dry brushing effect...it's easy to do and give a weathered and worn look which was perfect for this old and beat up frame.

The next step was to apply new jute webbing to the chair.  The burlap will support the springs in the chair's seat as well as the foam and fabric for the back.

I was able to put my DIY Gooseneck Webbing Stretcher to good use for this part.  It's working like a charm so far and I don't have any complaints.

For an excellent tutorial on applying webbing to a chair frame, check out Studio Swiss's online tutorial. It gives you all the info you need, plus a Swiss accent!  You should probably eat it while eating some Lindt chocolate.  Probably for the best.

I find the stretching of the jute webbing fairly straightforward.  You just want to be certain that your webbing is well-spaced and centred (I didn't do an excellent job of that here...always room to improve!), and that the webbing is pulled very taut - it should sound a bit like a drum.

 
The webbing on the seat needs to be more substantial than the webbing on the back of the chair.  The seat webbing will support the springs and weight of an individual, whereas the webbing in the back will get less strenuous wear and is mostly needed to offer some back support and to act as a foundation for the foam and fabric.

Stay tuned for the next installment where I'll sew in and tie my springs and get the seat ready for upholstering.

DIY Gooseneck Webbing Stretcher

I like to save money where I can.  I'm focusing more on upholstery these days and one of the necessary tools you'll need if you're going to be rebuilding furniture is a webbing stretcher.  There are different versions of this tool, but the most user-friendly version looks like this:

This is a gooseneck webbing stretcher by CS Osborne & Co, the muckity mucks of upholstery.  And while this version even bears my maiden name (can you see it?), I just couldn't part with the $40 - $60 it was going to cost me to order one of these online. 


I found a version like this at a local Fabricland for $37, but still....I couldn't justify it and I felt like there had to be a better way! 

Usually searching online for DIY or 'make your own' versions of things yields lots of options, but in this case, not so much.  It took a couple of searches before I found this eHow article on How to Make A Webbing Stretcher which was somewhat helpful, but devoid of pictures. 


Then I came across this weird french anime DIY blog which had a couple of pictures.  There was also another foreign language site with a couple of other pictures, but I cannot for the life of me find it to share with you now. 

So, with a little scrap wood, some nails and screws I had on hand, and an old paint roller, I came up with this:

Not too shabby, right?  True, it's not going to last forever, it certainly doesn't have the durability of the $60 models above, but this one cost me NOTHING and will serve my purposes for the moment, so I say it's a win! 

Here's what you'll need:

Block of scrap wood approx. 4"x4" (I used pine, it's soft and easy to bang the nails into)
Wood Glue
4d or similar nails
1/2 inch screws
Old paint roller handle
Power Drill & Drill Bit
Rubber, thick material, leather, or foam scrap
Staples
Staple Gun
Awl
Hand chisel & Hammer

I cut my scrap of wood to the dimension I needed with my jigsaw.  I didn't measure it, just guesstimated the size I needed based on the width of my jute webbing. 

Then I used a wire cutter (or tin snips) to cut the heads off of 14 nails.  Maybe wear protective eyewear for this step, those little heads can fly! 

Using my awl, I punched starter holes into the pine block.  I put seven nails in the first row and seven in the back row, but I staggered their placement.  I put a dob of wood glue onto the hole made by the awl before knocking in the headless nails (pointy ends up, headless ends down!).  Yes, the heads get a bit dinged, but you don't need them super-sharp anyway.  With the wood glue they feel very sturdy. 

Then I chose a drill bit that matched the width of my paint roller handle.  I drilled a hole into the wood about an inch and a half from the top of the wood with the nails in it.  Your measurement for where to place the hole could be different, it will depend on how your paint roller handle is shaped.  If you take a look at my first picture, you'll see there's a bend in the handle which sits about 1/2 an inch below the start of the wood...aim for something like this and drill your hole accordingly.   

You're drilling a hold to push the roller-holding part of the paint roller handle into the wood.   I used a small 2 inch roller so that the roller wouldn't extend beyond my wood.  You should, too! 

After drilling the hole, I used a chisel to chip away a divot/groove below the hole.  This is for the arm of the handle - to help it lay flat against the wood. 

I filled the hole with wood glue and then bashed my roller handle into the hole and kept bashing the handle until it laid mostly flat into the groove. 

Then I placed 5, 1/2 inch screws into the wood to add extra holding power to the handle.  Larger head screws would be ideal here, but I just used what I had on hand. 

The final step was adding my protective piece of rubber (I actually used a strip from an old non-slip, foam type mat) to the top of the wood.  I'd say you need about a 3"-31/2" long  by 2 1/2" wide piece of rubber or thick material or leather for this.  You want to use this to pad the top of the stretcher because this is the part of the stretcher that comes in contact with the frame of the furniture piece you are upholstering, and you don't want to mark the frame (especially if it is a visible, outer part of the frame!).   The foam I used isn't what I'd recommend, I'd recommend rubber if you can find it, but again, this is what I had on hand and can be replaced. 

I centred the foam and then stapled it down with my staple gun.  Et voila!  A free, make your own webbing stretcher! 

She ain't pretty, but she can help you do this:

Success! 

And in case you're wondering, care of my new idol (and girl crush!), Amanda Brown of Spruce Upholstery in Austin, Texas this is how you use a gooseneck webbing stretcher:

And if you've dabble a bit in DIY upholstery and are looking for more info, teaching and lots of awesome pictures, I highly recommend Amanda's book, Spruce: A Step By Step Guide to Upholstery and Design. 

Happy stretching! 

New Business Card Design

So I use Vistaprint for my business cards.  I like it because it's a Canadian company and they're really affordable - plus, they have pretty good editing options, and the website and interface is really user-friendly.  Since I don't really have the skills to be a graphic designer, and cheat and use a combo of 'stock' design cards and my own images. 

Have I mentioned how I do everything in Word?  Yes.  I'm pretty ghetto over here.  Deal with it. 

I created the blog header above in Word.  Fancy!  I decided I liked the design so much I transferred it to the new business card design. 

"But Emily, didn't you just order new business cards a few months ago?"

Thanks for asking.  Yes, yes I did.  I love them.  They looked like this:

I thought they were pretty snazzy...and I loved how I'd managed to place the text just right...

Then I went to a local craft fair a few weeks later.  One of the vendors had chosen the same card style as me!  Quelle domage!  But I figured, 'hey, what's one similar card?'  ONLY IT WASN'T!

Then we moved to Picton.  And the cool coffee shop down the road has business cards this style.  *blergh*  Then I dropped my card off at an antiques shop that needs some refinishing work done....and they thought they recognized my card (cool!).  ONLY NOT COOL!  Nope, it was some other jerk's lovely individual's card.  *double blerg*

Needless to say, I went back to the drawing board....or, should we say 'chalkboard?'  I'm jumping on the 'chalk' trend...we'll see what happens.  It's not like I've really got a 'brand' established.  Or, like, a real business, so no sweat! 

Yeesh.

Here's the new style.  What do you think?

It's reversible!  And yes, it's kinda purple...see, the stock card that actually worked with the image I wanted to use was sort of purplish...so I adapted.  Trust me, I tried a lot of other options.  This is the best so far.  Also, I can get 250 of these for $30. 

Somebody show me a better deal!  I dare you! 

Felt Flower Bouquets

For my wedding in 2011, I ditched the typical flower arrangements and made my own  brooch bouquet.  I'm going to let you in on a secret: making a brooch bouquet, from vintage and other found brooches, even when you're frugal, is not really that inexpensive.  I probably spent just as much on my brooch bouquets for my sister (my maid of honour) and myself as I would have on fresh cut flowers.

HOWEVER....

Felt & button flower bouquets are adorable, funky and much more affordable!  I made these bouquets for a friend's wedding for much less than we would have paid for fresh cut flowers.

We even made felt & button flowers which played double duty as table centrepieces and wedding favours at the end of the night.  Each flower had a handwritten 'thank you' note attached with the wedding date on the reverse.

I'm not going to say these took no time at all...they were pretty time consuming, but it was fun and affordable - and unique!

And these are my lovely friends on their wedding day (sorry, don't have one of them with the flowers yet!).  

Aren't they gorgeous?!  

Chairs! Chairs! Chairs!

Brace yourself, I've got lots of before & afters coming at you....

Funky, right?  This chair was sponsored by a really eclectic store that sells unique home furnishings and other oddities collected from across Canada & Europe...I guess that inspires antlers?  And sweater-chairs? 

Beautiful butterflies!  There are two of these beauties, refinished by a colleague of mine, and they're stunners. 

These farm stools are pretty awesome - they even spin!  I made it so that the 'stamp' can be customized for whoever wins these.  They can choose their own letters/numbers to personalize it. 

Faux fur throw and Hudson Bay inspired print on the pillow - this chair is sponsored by the New Canadians Centre, obviously! 

Not really much to look at when it's 'full frontal' (in buff beige, no less!), but a peek of colour on the back.  Surprise!  Not so boring after all. 

And I can't remember if I shared this "suit-able" chair before...it's covered in a wool suit fabric salvaged from a charity shop in town.

All the chairs are rescues and salvages, most from my trolling on Kijiji (good times!), and then lovingly refurbished.  They're auctioned off to support the YMCA Strong Kids Campaign - auction is Saturday night.

Can't wait!

So you don't know anything about drafting (and that's OK!)

And you don't have Photoshop or any other cool editing program...

Hey, that's OK!  Neither do I! 

I do all my photo editing using a MS program and created these Farm Table table top designs using MS Word.  Sometimes, you don't need the fancy stuff (although I've heard it's nice....real nice). 

• The first step was to turn on the 'grid' function so that I had what looks like graph paper (you can find that under 'View').  I also had to change the orientation of my page to landscape, and change the paper size to 11x14 to fit it all in.  
• Using the grid lines I went to Insert>Shape and selected a box/rectangle.  Then I counted out the size of my pieces of wood...one square = one inch.  The light grey rectangles vary in length but are 6" wide. 
• I made a bunch of 'wood planks' out of boxes and then I had fun playing around with patterns and designs. 
• Make sure you count out the proper sizes by using the grid as a guide!  The pieces  in option A are 6"x48", 6"x36", 6"x24" the short are 6"x12".  You have to count - otherwise you won't know how long your pieces are, or what to cut when you get to that part. 
• I added 'nails' by creating teeny tiny circles and then using copy & paste a lot.  *Hint*  It's easier if you create a row, then 'group' the individual circles, and then copy & paste the rows.  You can rotate the rows to get them running in the direction you need (ie: horizontally or vertically). 

That's pretty much it! 

So the farm table I made using Ana White's plans has been popular, and I have a request for another. 

This time I'm offering a couple of options for table top 'layout.'  Here they are:




Option A is a little more 'rustic' perhaps, giving the impression of more 'salvaged' wood, while Option B is a bit more 'streamlined.'



They're ready to send off now. 

Easy peasy!

Union Jack Chair - sponsored by the UK Shoppe

Check out this before & after! 

She's a beauty!  This year's YMCA Chairs for Charity event is keeping me extra busy.  I love all the chairs, but gosh, they take a lot of time!  Hug an upholsterer today - they deserve it! 

My Union Jack chair is made from an old shower curtain (the black & blue stripe fabric), an old velvet shirt (red stripe) and some damask print white fabric.  The black fabric is left over from last year's event and is a lovely, thick and heavy, black fabric. 

Hours of sewing at my vintage Singer (oh yeah, I finally got a sewing machine that [mostly] works), lots of staples, and all new foam padding inside. 

Jolly good!

Oh, and the cute little pillow I also made myself using my trusty Mac-Tac paper-and-paint technique. 

Ta-ta for now!