Wednesday!

How did that happen?

With the husband out of town and a long weekend, I have not gotten very far on my upholstery project. I did remove the springs and plan to have a board cut to go in the seat. Mostly I have been removing staples. I have decided that staples are MUCH more difficult to remove than the tacks.

Right now I am going to focus on slowly and carefully removing staples and fabric, then sanding and painting the frame while I figure out how I am going to get a board cut for the seat!

Oh, and  I did take everything back to home depot...I know you were biting your nails wondering!

So, next time I post I will have some pictures of progress. Okay? Okay. Great.

Friday Update

1. Finished the painting touch-ups on the found windows.

2. Decided to retain and use the burlap that covered the bottom of the chair. It has these metal thingies that keep the springs in place, and I have decided to try and use the springs. So, I washed the burlap.

Yes, the water is actually BLACK. That is not an illusion. I rinsed and refilled the sink and soaked it for about 30 minutes. The water that was left was just an amber color. And the burlap didn't fall apart, so i put it out in the sun and am waiting for it to dry......

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As far as the actual chair upholstering....sigh. I had a twofold mission today and I failed. FAILED! Home Depot MISSION: 1.buy staple gun 2. Ingrid falls asleep in the car.

Alas, Ingrid fell asleep on the way TO Home Depot instead of the way HOME. fail. And while lugging a 33 pound, sleeping 2 year old to purchase a power staple gun, I realize I have left my wallet in the car. Really? I go to the car, I come back, Ingrid wakes up to begin screaming for candy (thank you Halloween), and I realize I do not have my Home Depot gift card that I have been waiting to use in my wallet!!!!! fail. Fail, FAIL!

Ah, but I live to fight another day. I went ahead and bought the staple gun and will return it and then re-purchase it with my gift card. Yes, I will. Just without Ingrid. I may even ask the husband to do it! Hooray for the weekend!

found windows project

This took 2 naptimes. One for sanding and cleaning, and one for painting and wood filler. If you look closely, you will see I still need to paint over the wood filler on the middle window pane.

For me, the hardest part was figuring out how to hang these.

They are heavy, so I wanted to use wall studs. I decided to let the studs dictate exactly where I hung them. The windows are hung on 5 studs. I hammered nails into the studs (one each) at and angle and then drilled corresponding, angled holes into the back of frames. This also allowed them to hang flat against the wall.

The outside frames have two holes each, and the middle frame just has one. There was a lot of measuring, and a lot of pencil lines, involved in the hanging.

But I love it!!!!

un-upholstering a found Fauteuil Chair

Found two of these babies on the side of the road on election morning. Had to make the "mommy sees gold on the side of the road" u-turn. Thank goodness for vans, right?

The seats and the arms are worn through and the fabric on the back of the chair is badly faded, but I googled re-upholstering, and it seemed pretty straight forward. Time consuming and painstaking, but straight forward.

Back view!

The bottom seemed like the easiest place to start. Following advice from the hunted interior (http://thehuntedinterior.blogspot.ca/2012/03/reinventing-bergere-tutorial.html), I grabbed my needle-nose pliers and my mini crowbar....and prepared myself for staples. Many, many staples. And I was not disappointed. BUT, there were also carpet tacks. Many, many carpet tacks. The view above is after removing the black fabric covering the bottom of the chair and beginning to pry off the carpet tacks holding the fabric on.

(It was at this point that I ran inside to find something to put over my nose and mouth. There was old, rotten fabric dust everywhere. I cannot stand the work masks, so I just grabbed a nightgown and tied it around my face like a cowgirl. It was a good call.)

These chairs have a bottom that is almost entirely upholstered! The bottom part of the fabric is a separate piece!

Which is attached to the chair with more carpet tacks! 

There were 3 sides to pry off. All with cotton batting underneath. 

Now to really get into it. I started taking the main piece of fabric off the seat of the chair. I wanted to preserve the shape, so I could use it as a pattern for the new fabric. Ugh. Carpet tacks. Many, many carpet tacks.

I was able to pull this batting off in one piece, taking its tacks with it.

Eww.

I have no idea what this green fibery stuff is...

Okay, so there is wound paper nailed all around the chair. And the nails are, like, 2 inches long. So awesome. At this point I am beginning to get frustrated. Although, I must admit, the upholstery job is excellent. 50 years old, but excellent.

So after prying the wound paper off, I closed my eyes (remember, my nose and mouth are covered) and  started to pull away the old, rotty burlap. It came away easily. 

What?! Seriously, what do I do with all these springs. I also pried away the burlap from the bottom. The springs were attached to the bottom with metal things (i have no idea what they would be called)...and I just slid the end of the spring out. 

Seriously gross.

Look at all that icky stuff on the ground.

So for today, that is where I stopped. I took the bottom piece of burlap off and left the strings, so I have a chair frame with dangly, naked springs. We'll see what we can do during naptime tomorrow!