the upholstery project

first, a little background on my family.  my sister and i love to clothes shop, and i'm a big fan of thrift stores for over-enthusiastic furniture remakes.  our parents, the mums specifically, abhor shopping of any kind that has to be done in person; i think internet shopping was invented for them.  my sister also stand at a towering 4'11.75"... or 5' according to her doctor.  but i digress.  needless to say, regular chairs dwarf her, and her little feet dont touch the ground. 

mums, of all people, found the tiniest chair ever at some kind of estate sale where they live, and brought me the chair to reupholster.  and then it sat in my living room from thanksgiving 2014.  over christmas, my sister and i perused fabric.com for the appropriate fabric, i ordered it, aaand it sat in my sewing room for the next 4 months. 
fast forward to march, and the sis was in town for a symphony performance.  we went to extravagant lunches and a little bit of shopping, and then sat down to watch netflix, as you do.  i finally set into the chair after some subtle suggestions from the fam. 

and now, the most picture laden unhelpful tutorial [more of a photo essay] on reupholstery ever.  i suggest you get a book.

first, rip off the ugliest chair skirt ever, and watch little upholstery tacks fly around the room.  then admire your work and have a beer.  then, remove the dust cover from the bottom, and start dismembering the weird little ruffly bit around the edge. 

figure out what the point of this tool is and wonder where you ever acquired it.  also, why you didnt use it half an hour ago.

remove other bits of fluff and fabric.  try and remember how things were assembled.  cut off poorly tufted buttons. 

frank helped.

read previous upholsterer's [?] message and add your own.  this chair has now been covered in the 1940s, 1980, and 2015.  friggin piece of history right there.

admire weirdly naked chair and piles of crap on floor.  leave it all for a week. 

purchase large piece of foam from craft store.  next stop optional: get pulled over on the way home for 4-month expired registration tags; thank cop for realizing i am actually a moron, and only giving me a warning.  cut foam to fit, cover with muslin to prevent the green color showing through, and staple the bejesus out of everything.  once seat is partially finished, start on back of chair - definitely in this order so the opening between the seat and the back has the fabric layered correctly for stapling.  that sentence only makes sense to me.  moving on.

overlap piping on back of seat and add fluff and fabric.  struggle for hours.  replace dust cover to undercarriage.  add fluffly bits sans ruffles around the bottom edge of seat to cover remaining wood and prevent future shin bruises.

admire work, pat self on back, and have whiskey.