KathyMcCurdy.com

After getting over my jealousy regarding all the warm places my third grade students were traveling to this March (Hawaii, Bahamas, Florida, Nevis), I decided to try and be productive.

Several years ago I found a chair tossed out at the dump. It was old, in horrible shape, and covered in ugly green fabric that was worn through in spots but there was something I liked about it (besides the price). So I took it. It's been living in the basement for years. In fact I think I planned to recover it for one of the kids while they were at college. Well that didn't happen but several months ago when I noticed the overstuffed arm chair in Patrick's apartment had a broken arm, I thought, "Ah ha!"

And so, having to babysit Lady and knowing that snow was coming, what better thing to do than stay inside and upholster a chair? (Well, Nevis would have been nice.)

I wish I had taken a photo of the whole chair before starting. It would have helped me with some of the details I forgot. I did take some of areas where I thought I'd need reminders.

Outside side view

Inside view

Worn out

Taking it apart

Inside it was a little more complicated than chairs I had done before.

And the chair was old.

Again, I wish I had taken photos of the chair stripped down but had no intentions of doing a blog on it. Once stripped down I had to reweb the bottom. I decided the springs were in ok shape. They probably could have been a little tighter but not having experience with tieing them, I decided to leave them alone. (This is called avoidance.)

I was able to keep some of the insides also, specifically the stuffing on the arms and the inside back.

I did the deck, then one of the inside arms and then the back. I forgot that I should have done both inside arms before the back and this kept me from getting the back really tight later on the right side.

Putting on the outside arms is always fun as the chair begins to look like something.

I worked on the chair on the ping pong table so I wouldn't have to bend over and kill my back.

Then moved it to the floor to finish sewing the cording to the fabric. I didn't want to make my own welting so bought some decorative cording. This resulted in having to go to three stores to find enough for the chair. Ugh. Here are some close-ups of the trim.

Hmm...I see a little something to correct.

Voila, the finished product...except for the cushion which I've discovered has disintegrated due to age, so off to the store again to buy a new cushion.

Watch for the final photo in a few days.