Mission Accomplished

We pulled out our jumperoo a few weeks ago for Brooklyn to play in. It is hard for us to believe she is already old enough to play in it. She turned 4 months old last week! We took these pictures a week ago of her playing. It has been neat seeing her gain more control of her hands and show more interest in toys.
This winter, Kyle was pretty much locked away preparing for his comprehensive exam. In the meantime, I took frequent trips to Logan with the kids to work on building two chairs for our front room. It was a good opportunity for me to leave with the kids to give him lots of quiet time, and for me to have some fun learning something new.

Kyle's mom knows how to upholster and offered to teach me some tricks. I decided to order chair frames and build them from scratch rather than just recover existing frames. It was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. I love these frames. They are solid maple and have inlay across the top. I tried to take pictures of the process, but forgot to take some of all the steps.

Here are a few pictures of the unfinished frames. We had to glue several pieces together, then I sanded, stained, glazed, and lacquered the frames. This part took several days.


After finishing the wood, we applied webbing to the bottom of the chair and sewed 9 springs to each. I feel bad I didn't get any pictures of the springs because my fingers sure were sore at the end.

We also tied the springs down to the height we wanted. Again, I didn't get a picture. This was a frustrating step and again very tiring on our hands. Each spring was tied with 8 knots. With 18 springs with 8 knots each we were very happy to finish.

We covered the tied springs with burlap. You can sort of see little bulges where all the knots are underneath. After the burlap we added layers of padding and foam to cushion the springs.

After looking over hundreds of fabric samples I picked my fabric. Luckily I was able to find one in my price range. Some of my favorites were $100 a yard!!
We had to be very careful laying the fabric just right and always checking that the diamonds were lined up, the tension on the fabric was consistent and that we were careful when we cut. I had to unpick a lot of staples.
The back of the chair was made by stapling a piece of fabric, a layer of what looks like quilt batting, then webbing (the same braided strips that we put on the bottom), burlap, foam, and more of the stuff that looks like batting.


Kyle's mom, Lynne recently broke her wrist so we were nervous whether or not we would be able to finish the chairs so soon. Although she wasn't able to help as much as in the past, we were able to finish them during our most recent visit.
Kyle took this picture of us pretending we did something wrong.
Trimming the fabric was sometimes tricky, especially in this tight spot.
This is the chair without the welting (aka trim that finishes the edges). There are special glues that are used for this. Lynne likes to use one that goes in your glue gun.

Voila! Here is the finished product in my bay window. They fit great! We are so glad that now when we have visitors we won't have to pull out our kitchen chairs.
I am so happy to finally be done with these chairs. I now have a greater appreciation for upholsterers. It is true that they earn every dime. Next, I am going to make some bar stools for my kitchen island and recover my kitchen chairs. That will be quite simple compared with what I just finished.

Hmmm . . . I never thought I would ever be someone to ask my husband for an air compressor or a staple gun for Christmas.