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!

Lessons from the Masters: Lynn Woodruff of Woody's Trim Shop

As a newcomer to the upholstery trade, I have had the great luxury of getting to know folks who’ve been in the business for about as long as I’ve been alive. As many of these upholsterers are starting to slow down their business and ease into retirement, I wanted to learn more about their experiences, thoughts on the trade, and their advice for a burgeoning upholsterer such as myself before they decide to lay down the staple gun for good.

For my second installment in this series, I sat down with Lynn Woodruff of Woody's Trim Shop in Kalona.

Lynn Woodruff with one of his cars.  Find Lynn at Woody's Trim Shop at 1162 Larch Ave in Kalona, IA or contact him at (319) 330-4797).

Lynn’s upholstery experience ranges across the country and through decades.  He’s practiced both furniture and auto upholstery, worked for himself and for others, and after 49 years in the trade, is in fact a master upholsterer.  Lynn moved to Montana in 1966, and after a brief stint as a ranch hand, he found a job working under an experienced upholsterer specializing in auto upholstery. Upholstery is a portable skill and Lynn proved that out by practicing upholstery in Missouri, California and Connecticut over the next several decades. Locally, Lynn worked for Borst Furniture in Cedar Rapids for 17 years before opening his current shop where he does vehicle upholstery.

Lynn at the sewing machine.

While many upholsterers either do primarily furniture or primarily vehicles, Lynn has had experience with both. He prefers working on cars, and that is what he does now at Woody's Trim Shop. For Lynn, “furniture is pretty much all the same”; after all, every piece of furniture has a seat, a back, and cushions (and he “hate[s] doing cushions”), but cars are all different.  Installing new upholstery in a car gives him a freer hand and is more interesting than upholstering furniture.  One disadvantage to cars however, is that the work is heavier and harder on the body; climbing around in a car and taking out old seats is rough on the joints, particularly the knees.  Furniture is easier; though when I ask what kind of work-related health problems I can look forward to, even working primarily with furniture he says at the least I'll be getting arthritis.

Bench seat before and after

When asked about what has changed in upholstery over the years and what he sees for the future, Lynn seems to agree with the sentiments I’ve heard so far: namely, that furniture has become lower in quality, but even so, there will always be a need for upholsterers.  One of the reasons that Lynn turned away from upholstering furniture was that he saw it getting made more cheaply over time. Instead of hard wood frames with doweled joints, he saw plywood frames stapled together. At the same time, he says that even though “anything where you are working with your hands is becoming a dying art . . . I think there will always be a call for [custom upholstery]”.

Custom upholstered seats and door panels in one of Lynn's cars

I’m  inspired by the seriousness with which Lynn approaches his work: when work comes in, he wants to do it the right way, which likely isn’t the cheaper or easier way.  He prefers to give a job its due, and thus his tufted backs are folded and seats are tucked and rolled. This attitude shows through in his advice for a new upholsterer; Lynn says that “if you’re going to do it, do it full-heartedly.”  Finding an experienced upholsterer to work under is a must, as is just getting experience: “you can read a book on how to do something, but until you actually do it, and make your own mistakes and try to figure out how to correct them, thats the way you’re going to learn.”  

While taking apart a cushion or seat to correct a mistake (sometimes for the third or fourth time), I’ve ruminated on the lessons I learn while practicing upholstery that spill over to every-day life. Lynn’s guidance for prevailing and prospering in upholstery can also be read as a way to thrive in life. Take it from a master upholsterer: becoming successful means having the desire to do things the right way, being the best that you can be, having patience, and striving to learn something new every day.

Lessons from the Masters: Ray Bender of Kalona Upholstery

As a newcomer to the upholstery trade, I have had the great luxury of getting to know folks who’ve been in the business for about as long as I’ve been alive. As many of these upholsterers are starting to slow down their business and ease into retirement, I wanted to learn more about their experiences, thoughts on the trade, and their advice for a burgeoning upholsterer such as myself before they decide to lay down the staple gun for good.

For my first installment in this series, I sat down with the man who introduced me to this business, my dad, Ray Bender.

Ray Bender of Kalona Upholstery and Supply.  Find out more about Kalona Upholstery at www.kalonaupholstery.com or by calling (319) 656-3466.

Ray has been in the business for about 28 years and a desire to be self-employed was what drove his first foray into furniture upholstery.  In the early 1970s he was living in rural Maryland and came across an ad in a magazine promising that the reader could ‘make money and win friends’ by mastering the art of furniture upholstery through the Modern Upholstery Institute correspondence school. Ray signed up for the course and began receiving lessons through the mail. Once he completed a lesson, he would take a test and mail in his answers and then receive the next. Tools and materials for each lesson were provided by the Institute and he gradually worked his way from covering a book to fully upholstering various types of furniture. It took Ray about 1.5 years from when he started the course to when he did his first paying job for a customer. He sold off the business after a move to Iowa and spent several years in the auto body business, but came back to furniture upholstery and opened Kalona Upholstery and Supply in the 90s.

The Modern Upholstery Institute price list.

One of the first lessons in the course

Another lesson

While a lot has changed in the world since the 1970s, in Ray’s view, the trade of furniture upholstery has remained largely the same.  Though some of the furniture that comes through the shop is now made of cheaper materials (such as plywood, chipboard and poor quality foam), the higher-end furniture is still made in the same tradition as in the 1970s (or even a hundred years ago), utilizing solid wood frames, and 8-way tied coil springs.  He says that, “if there’s any huge change from years ago, its that there are foam cushions now as opposed to spring cushions . .  but I think the basics are the same and have been the same for a long time.”

Looking towards the future, though the  manufacturing process has changed due to new technologies, Ray doesn't anticipate much changing in the furniture reupholstery trade.  In fact, this is one of the things that first attracted him to upholstery; he “knew that [he’d] always know how to do it, because the old stuff was out there, and the new stuff still used the same methods.” In response to my queries on the so-called ‘culture of disposability’ and whether that poses a threat to the future of the trade, Ray wasn’t too worried, saying that in his experience, there will always be a segment of the population who want quality items that will last.

Ray at work in his shop. 

Ray has given me a lot of good advice over the past year regarding the craft of furniture upholstery as well as running a business.  When pressed for just one key nugget of advice he’d give to a new upholsterer, he said that “as far as the actual work goes, pay attention to the details, because thats what separates the good from the average.”  For Ray, providing custom upholstery that is crafted by hand means taking the time to make a finished product that, when possible, is better than what was done at the factory.

At the end of our interview, Ray shared with me a saying that has inspired him, and now is inspiring me:

If you work with your hands, you’re a laborer.

If you work with your hands and your head, you’re a craftsman.

If you work with your hands, your head, and your heart, you’re an artist.

Says Ray, “I try to be an artist.”