Sectional Project Photo Diary

Up until a couple years ago, I honestly never gave much thought to the furniture around me; though I might notice the fabric color or cleanliness, it never occurred to me to wonder how exactly it was put onto the piece I was sitting on. As with most things, a little bit of knowledge opened up my world and now I can't walk into a room without noticing the furniture upholstery and how its put together. So that you too can take a peek into this world, I've put together a photo diary showing the different elements of a sectional piece and how its recovered.  

Follow me to the land of loose tacks, welting, ribbons, and staples. . . 

This is the piece just as we're starting to take it apart. The old fabric was stained in  many places and starting to sag; we'll be replacing it with the same pattern. When taking apart a chair, you always work in the reverse order from how the upholstery was put on.  In this case, we've started by taking off the cambric on the bottom, then will be the outside back, the ribbon around the sides and front, the inside back and finally, the seat. The only tools required are a staple puller (pictured on the saw horse) and some muscle.

With the fabric removed and all of the staples pulled, the sectional is ready to be recovered.  This sectional was put together in a way that I've usually only seen with antique chairs.  There are grooves in the frame between each of the different parts of the sectional into which the pieces of fabric should be stapled. When all of the pieces of fabric are stapled on, then welting is glued into the grooves to hide the staples and finish the piece.  Because this customer specifically asked that the welting not be glued, I'll be attaching the fabric in the more usual way and not utilizing the grooves. 

I often cut out all of my fabric pieces first before attaching anything to the furniture. Including the welting, this sectional has only five pieces of fabric that I'll need to cut out.  I usually take my measurements from the furniture itself, but also keep the old fabric as a reference in case I need to use it as a pattern, or refer to it to see how it was folded or cut. 

Loose tacking is the initial stage of attaching the fabric on the seat. I've got the fabric positioned and attached with a few staples on all sides.  Notice the hills and valleys in the fabric -- these will be eliminated once I add more staples to evenly pull the fabric. 

Here I'm preparing to make my cut to bring the seat fabric around the outside posts.  Making a cut still gives me some anxiety -- cut too little and you'll have a ripple because the fabric isn't able to pull tight enough; cut too much and you may end up having to do the whole thing again. 

The corner cut has been made so that the fabric can pull around nicely on the back and sides of the frame.

Finished seat with the fabric pulled tightly and evenly.

The first stage of covering any piece of furniture is to attach the seat or deck fabric. When attaching any piece of fabric, the first rule is to center it, the second is to start in the middle and work towards the corners, the third rule is Newton's third law (every action should have an equal and opposite reaction; i.e. put a staple in the front, then a staple in the back using equal pressure and pull; then on each side, etc.) and the fourth rule is that you'll inevitably have to take some of your staples out, and that's just the nature of the work.  Making clean and concise corner cuts and ensuring that all of the fabric is pulled evenly adds some complexity to putting on all pieces of fabric, including the deck. 

Loose tacking the inside back

The finished inside back from behind

The sectional with the inside back and seat attached

The next stage is to attach the inside back. This goes on in much the same way as the seat with folds at the top and corner cuts on the bottom. 

Pictured on the left is the standard size of welting I normally use for almost all projects.  The cording on the right is the welting used for this piece.  Since I didn't have this large of welting on hand, I reused what was previously on the chair. 

I used a specialty foot for my machine to sew the larger welting. The basic process is to cut strips of fabric into which the cording is sewn.  A welting foot for the sewing machine assists in ensuring that the cording is sewn into the fabric snugly. 

I've stapled the welting on around the front of the seat.  It is positioned so that the cord will be right at the top of the ribbon piece which will be attached next.

Welting is the decorative cording that you will find on most pieces of furniture (once you know what to look for, you'll see it everywhere).  This piece utilized a particularly large type of welting around the front and sides and the outside back.  Often the welting may be sewn on to other pieces, such as a front ribbon; however, in this case, since the welting was so large and cumbersome to sew, I instead stapled it onto the piece. 

While stapling on the ribbon and cardboard tacking strip, I stop often to check that the fabric is taut, even and straight and that I'm attaching it snugly up against the welting.

Here you can see a close-up of the tack strip attachment method.

Once the ribbon is attached on top with the tack strip, the bottom is pulled down and stapled to the underside of the frame. 

After the welting around the seat is attached, the ribbon around the front and sides goes on next.  To achieve the finished top edge on the ribbon, a cardboard tacking strip is stapled on top of the underside of of the ribbon and ideally, fitted snugly up against the cording. The ribbon is then pulled down and the bottom is stapled to the underside of the sectional. 

The outside back padding and the welting that will go around it are loosely tacked on.

We once again use a cardboard tack strip to attach the top of the outside back. 

A metal tack strip is used to attach both sides of the outside back.  The tack strip is a long, thing piece of metal that has teeth or tacks sticking out.  Those teeth are poked through the fabric, which is then folded around so that the teeth can be driven into the frame of the chair. 

Cardboard and metal tack strips are the secret to the finished look of an outside back.  Fun fact: before tack strips, outside backs had to be attached via hand stitch

The outside back is the last piece of fabric to attach and will hide all of the raw edges and staples that are still visible on the chair.  A cardboard tack strip is once again used on the top and metal tack strips are used on each side to achieve a finished edge; the bottom is pulled under the chair and stapled. Of all of the pieces, outside backs take the most patience and care.  It can take a few rounds of trial and error to get the tack strips positioned correctly so that they'll exert the amount of pull needed and when folded over and driven home, will be placed snugly against the welting. 

And finally, after attaching cambric on the bottom (not pictured), the piece is finished!