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! 

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!

Reproduction Coffee Sack Chair

I love reusing things and making them new.  I wish I'd actually been able to find an old coffee sack for this project.  From the hits you can get on Google when you type in 'coffee sack chair' you'd think these things are being given away at your closest DIY or thrift store.  Not so, my friends, not so.  What's a girl to do?  MAKE ONE, obviously.

And so I did. 

I was given a stack of old burlap sacks a few months ago.  I washed them, dried them, washed them, and dried them...and then hung them out on the line for ages.  They shed.  Worse than a collie.  Here's a tip for you: if you wash industrial grade burlap and then dry it in your clothes dryer, check your lint trap about every 5 seconds so your house doesn't catch on fire.  I'm not saying my house caught on fire, but it could have.  Seriously.

Here's what I started with:

It was an occasional chair (possible one of a set of dining room chairs that got lost) and it was in great shape.  There was even still plastic on it from the manufacturer.  Could I actually take this thing apart?  Was is sacrilegious?  If you think so, you should probably stop reading.  Obviously I took it apart.  With abandon. 

 

When I take things apart, I usually attack them with a combination of screwdriver, chisel, hammer, and brute strength.  Sometimes I also use pliers.   That's what I did here, too.  I started with the front - everything was in great shape, so I was able to reuse the original foam and keep the trim (welt or piping, if you will).  I even kept the old fabric on there!  Saved me time, and kept everything in line (ie: foam on the backboard).

I ironed out the burlap, cut out a piece generously larger than I would ever need and set about stapling and triming.  It's not rocket science, but, like anything, the more you do the better you get.  I'm pretty good at reupholstery these days.  A tip?  Throw a few staples in place on either the top or bottom of your piece.  Use your flat palm to smooth and stretch your fabric down to the opposite end of your seat (or whatever you are reupholstering), and staple in place.  Go back up to the top, throw down a few more staples, and repeat the process.  This gives a bit more of a 'balanced' stretch to the fabric.  Repeat this on the sides and you will avoid those awful 'over stretched' moments when the fabric has been pulled too tight - this is especially important when using fabric with stripes. 

 

 

About corners: there are lots of methods for corners.  I like mine.  I staple the top, bottom and sides most of the way, but leave a couple of inches unstapled around the corners.  I pull the corner piece over the seat corner (or whatever corner you are dealing with) and throw in one staple to keep it from moving.  Then I trim the fabric on corner, effectively cutting of a 'triangle' of material.  This gets rid of bulk.  Then I pull over and staple the two corners one at a time - I trim away the excess fabric of the first corner I staple and then the second corner usually lies nice and flat.

Update: Hey guess what?  Because this section is totally confusing, I made a separate tutorial about how to fold upholstery corners.  You can read all about that here.

 

I covered the seat and two back pieces in what felt like a few minutes.  It was probably more like half an hour.  Or maybe three.  There are no windows in the basement so who knows?

Because I didn't have a 'real' coffee sack and was using burlap to recreate the same look, I could paint on any kind of pattern I wanted.  Just my style.  I opted for a unifiying triple stripe on the front and back.  I measured a mid-point on the chair seat, sketched a line in pencil all the way up the seat and then eyeballed an about-an-inch stripe for the centre and marked with tape.   

I 'eyeball' a lot.  I'm sorry.  Not everyone can do this.  You can do the extra step of measuring an inch each side of the centre line to get an exact measurement, and then tape off. 
 

 

I used plain old latex paint in an off-white for the centre stripe.  I didn't use much paint, and applied with a daubber for stencils.  Also, since I'm too cheap to buy 'real' painter's tape (unless it will ruin a surface) I used regular old masking tape.  Easy.

 

Guess what? I eyeballed the other stripes. I'm such a baller. Just tape 'em off and paint 'em. 

 

I like making stencils out of Contact Paper (or Mac Tac).  I print off the image I want to use (in this case I made one up in Word, save it as a jpeg and blew it up using Block Posters), and I glue it to the contact paper.  Then I cut the design out with nail (or sewing) scissors.  I like them better than an exacto knife...much easier to handle and easy on curves.

 

Quick paint job...

I was able to reuse the contact paper stencil twice - for the seat and for the back.  I didn't want everything to be too matchy matchy so I staggered the stencil on the back.  Perfecto!

 

 

I did a quick paint job on the chair with homemade chalk paint.  Gave it a really gentle distressing, and then reassembled everything.  I reused the original piping as it coordinated with the large stripe on the burlap sack.   

 

Check out the makeover linked up below, plus lots of other great redos!

Update: In March 2013, I was featured on 'Better After' my favourite blog devoted to the best part of DIY - the makeovers!  Have a look and fall in love with Lindsey's website youself - click below...