I'm finally done reupholstering a chair!

Well this is a blast from the past, indeed. If you recall Dave and I lovingly (stubbornly?) began reupholstering a chair and the end of LAST January to use in my Sacramento digs. Here's where we left off:

Looks great, no? I thought so, too and so kept putting off actually attaching the last pieces to cover the back and finish the bottom. After all, it was in a corner and I could sit on it. It wouldn't really look any different to the casual observer. *grin* I'm not gonna lie, it was well used in just this state. 

Fast forward to today and I've moved back down to Palo Alto with the chair in tow. Dave and I really ended up liking it, so we didn't sell it with the rest of my furniture from up there like we thought we might. Turns out, we don't have a great place for it at home, but Dave thinks it will be perfect in his office at work. But…. about that back…. it's been hanging out in our office here waiting to be finished. Ta da! It happened today. Funny, I remarked when we began this that I didn't want to be finishing it a year later. I guess I win on a technicality of a few weeks. How well do I know us?

In a fit of unprecedented productivity this weekend (I'm not really joking, we even organized our coat closet) Dave and I found ourselves back to wielding the staple gun and verbally cajoling fabric into place. Literally all we needed to do was cut one last panel of fabric for the back and figure out how to get the edges wrapped around the pointy strips of metal that hammer into the sides of the frame. Thankfully I still had the "pattern" pieces after all this time. The creases gave us hints as to how and where to get the fabric wrapped on the nail strips as well as made it easy to cut an appropriately sized and shaped piece.

We are definitely not professionals, or anything close to proficient, but considering this is our first upholstery job I think it looks ok. There are a few places near the bottom where I wish the fabric wasn't quite so loose but those nail strips were really a bear to try to deal with. I think we did the best we could. I'm still glad it's the back! 

Where the original had covered cording all the way around the bottom, we stapled the bottom black sheet back on and omitted the cord. To cover where the edges of fabric meet the legs I improvised little tabs of fabric. I just took a rectangle and folded the edges in so they would mimic the hotel corners on the front and hot glued them into place. They look like little tailored tabs and are a simple solution to cover up the messy bits. 

We are quite tickled with the result, and Dave is excited to get it to the office. I'm pretty impressed with our team work on this. It certainly isn't a project I could have accomplished on my own, and I think Dave even managed to have a bit of fun. After today's effort it looks much the same as the picture up above but now it's completely finished! And Kepler-approved.