Since my post two weeks ago on the anatomy of an antique boudoir chair, I have slowly but surely been rebuilding that same chair from the frame up and giving it a redesign. Follow along with me below to see how I did it. But first, for those of you who prefer a little immediate gratification, a before and after:
For the refurbished chair, I've created a channel back, rather than the more simple button back on the original. I've also mixed two different kinds a fabric -- a satiny golden flower pattern with a black vinyl accent ribbon on the front.
Back to where we were two weeks ago with the frame in pieces . . . the show wood was badly scuffed and nicked. I wanted to repair this wear without going through the process of totally stripping the wood. To do so, I lightly sanded each piece, then put on another coat of mahogany stain followed by another coat of varnish. The finished show wood is a uniform and lustrous color with the imperfections nicely masked. This of course made it all the more painful when I inevitably dinged the arms and legs during the re-upholstery process.
Next, I re-glued the frame using bar clamps and a bicycle inner tube that I had cut in half. When stretched out and tied together, the inner tube exerts enough pressure to firmly hold together the rounded frame of the seat while the wood glue dries. As you can see by the holes on the seat and back where the arms will fit, this frame is held together with dowel joints which are commonly used in antique furniture.
After the frame is back together, webbing is attached to the seat and back which serves as a scaffolding for springs and padding. I've used the traditional jute webbing, which is a strong and slightly stretchy burlap-type fabric; more modern pieces of furniture may use elastic webbing.
The coil springs are then attached to the webbing and tied in six places to each other and to the frame. The springs must be tied together tightly enough that pressure exerted on any one spring will cause the entire web of springs to flex. For this type of seat, the springs must also be tied to the frame in such a way that they are contoured to form a rounded seat. Thanks to Ray Bender at Kalona Upholstery for the master class in coil spring tying.
Burlap is attached over the springs in the seat after which comes the edge roll and padding. I used a large curved needle to attach the cotton and horsehair padding to the burlap and to the edge roll; this helps to ensure that the padding will not shift over time. The padding on the back and inside arms is stapled to the frame. For this piece, I was able to primarily re-use the original cotton batting.
The standard order of work when reupholstering a piece of furniture is to do the seat, or deck, first, then the inside arms and inside back; next are the outside arms and then finally, the outside back. Here, I've got the fabric attached to the insides of the chair. Since the fabric I used had a large pattern, I chose to center the pattern on each piece of the chair. This was my first time experimenting with a channel back which is made of individual pieces of fabric sewn first to each other, and then to a backing fabric and stuffed. To add to the challenge, I did my best to cut and sew the fabric so that the pattern would match seamlessly across channels. I used cotton from the original back of the chair to stuff the channels; doing so made for channels that were a little more lumpy than they might be had I used synthetic fiberfill or foam.
Finally, I've got all of the padding and fabric attached. Since part of the wood on the arms is exposed, the fabric for those pieces is stapled and cut right up to the edge of the show wood. I'll be covering up this raw edge with decorative nails, but gimp (a patterned, lace-like fabric), ribbon, or single or double welting can also be used to finish off exposed edges.
Decorative nails for upholstery come in a variety of shapes, finishes and colors; I chose to use the oxford style of decorative nail for this piece. In order to better cover up the raw edge of the fabric and staples, I've sewn together a narrow strip of fabric and attached this along the edge as I drive in nails.
The (mostly) finished piece! I'll do a little more fine-tuning to make sure all of my nail heads are straight and that everything else is as I want it before attaching a black drop cloth on the bottom of the seat and putting it up for sale next week.