Before / After

I found this little pair of stools next to a dumpster, grabbed them up, and then let them sit in my basement for a little while. I had already started webbing the pair of chairs, and was having a hard time finding enough webbing to finish that project, so even though I knew I wanted to re-webb these guys, I let them wait.

Well, I haven't finished my black chairs yet, but was getting the itch to do something with these. Hobby Lobby has cotton, 1 inch belt webbing in all sorts of colors, and spools that come in 25 yards. So, I decided to do black and white and keep the walnut wood tone. I wiped down the stools with walnut color restore-a-finish, and used steel upholstery tacks to tack down the webbing. Pretty easy project, and I love they way they turned out.


Both stools are marked in a couple different spots, but it isn't in English, and google translate was no help, so if anyone has any information on these please share, thanks.

Jack Pot!

Driving home from the fabric store one day, I notice what I thought might have been a treasure in an alley, to pull off a discover it was only trash! And as I turned around to get back on the main road I spotted what looked like a bolt sticking out of a dumpster, so of coarse I stopped to take a look. There were TWO bolts of Knoll Textiles, fabric dumped, still in plastic, waiting for me.

I had to back our car up to the dumpster and use the bumper as a boost, to get in the dumpster to pull off bags of garbage, to be able to pull out the heavy bolts of fabric! I shoved them in the car and drove home happy as a lark.

I can't ever find nice gray fabric at our fabric store, I'm always looking. So who can believe that I just found two bolts, 45 yards of beautiful , expensive fabric. The fabric is still sold by Knoll a is $29 a yard, so that means I found over $1300, worth of fabric!

So now I have no excuse to not start or finish a project, I've got enough fabric to upholster anything I may possibly bring home.

Finished daybed

Well, there it is in all of its glory. The little DIY I had posted about a couple of weeks ago. The project was very simple, a solid wood door from my husband, the large cushions were found and given a through cleaning, the hairpin legs were also found by my husband attached to a old warped piece of plywood. The back cushions were in my attic, I bought a couple of yards of unbleached muslin, I had the gray wool for the contrast welt on the back cushions, and after using some danish oil, I decided the color was too light, and bought a small can of walnut stain.

So, the total on that is about $10.

I'm happy with the finished project, and would recommend it to anyone in need of a couch, with a tight budget.

(my welting is getting a lot better, and with a few more projects, i'm sure I will be totally happy with it!)

Self-welt

This is the first time I've actually used welting on an upholstery project. I sew on a very average Brother sewing machine, and I first of all didn't feel it was capable of sewing that many layers together nicely, I also feel that welting eats up a lot of extra fabric cutting it on the bias.

Well, I decided that I needed to better my upholstery skills, and teach myself something new. It wasn't as hard as I thought, but it also wasn't as easy as it it could have been. I thought using some left over black fabric would be a great way to use up leftovers.

I started on the bottom cushion, and had a very hard time getting the welting as tight as I wanted it, and usually if I force my machine to do something it doesn't want to, it results in breaking something. For the next cushion, I decided to just go ahead and ride the welt with my sewing foot, and that did the trick. Since I have picked up a specialty foot for my machine, and I think at this point it is going to take some practice.

Think Danish modern daybed

Because I don't have enough unfinished projects, this is my new one. Our house had two black vinyl couches, and on a whim I decided that two was too many. So, one is now gone, and we now have a large empty hole where a couch used to sit. It's kind of nice for the moment, since it's usually too much furniture, not, not enough.

But, if I have an empty space it is sure to be filled, and since Baby J has two Danish modern daybeds in his room, I thought it would be easy enough to just bring one down and be done.

But, its really never that easy is it ? I found a couple of great stone colored, brushed canvas cushions in good shape, I brought them home washed them up, and low and behold they are 6'' too short. So, then I decided we would just make a daybed out of plywood and screw on wooden legs and be done. But, now I'm thinking hairpin. My husband had found a set in the alley, and I think they may work. I'm thinking about not using wedge pillows in the back and going with something more like the last few photos.

I think this maybe a project we'll knock out over the weekend, If I can get rid of this stupid head cold!

Suggestion...

I had George Nakashima's long chair brought to my attention by Rae, and I have to say I am in love. Everything thing about it. I might prefer the last one with the arm, but any will do.

I also love the natural walnut wood with the webbing, both black and unbleached. At this point I am not going to strip the black chair back, but what about leaving the rocker walnut with black webbing? maybe white?

It really shouldn't be this hard, and at this point I might just be stalling so that I don't have to remove the previous white webbing.

Thanks for the suggestion Rae, love this chair also! Probably won't be finding one of these in the alley.

See previous post

The first picture is one of the reasons I decided to paint my chair black, the photo is by Vincent Wolfe, via desiretoinspire. The last two pics are Jens Risom chair and ottoman. I thought these pictures may help with the decision.