Upholstery Tales

Let's just say that my first adventure in re-upholstery was a little more intense than I had anticipated. There may have been one night when Matt came home from hockey to find me crying with a hammer in my hand and dozens of ruined upholstery tacks around me. When I bought this bench (in its original state below) at a garage sale last summer for $40, I thought  it would be easy to 'just re-upholster' it. I mean, isn't that what they do on those design blogs? They just re-upholster stuff and make a whole lot of fabulous, no?

I actually loved the original fabric but it was completely threadbare and falling apart. It had to go. And then we (my Papa was helping me for this part...) tore off the old cover and we saw the straw-like interior. It had to go. And since the back of the backrests and the bottom of the bench were actually pieces of old cardboard from the 80's, they had to go as well. So I bought new fabric, stuffing, foam, wood backing, upholstery trim and 3 packs of tacks. All of that cost a lot more than my original garage sale steal of $40. I was beginning to see that this little bench was not going to be my deal of the year, instead it was going to be a life lesson... or something as equally profound.

I didn't really do any research before I started re-upholstering. I asked the lady at the foam store a question or two but for the rest, I am a firm believer that ignorance is bliss. The bench was not going to be used much  so my main concern was that it looked nice. It was a slow process to clean out the whole bench, remove the hundreds of nails, paint the wood, cut out new backings, shape the stuffing and nail in the new upholstery.  However, the hardest part came at the end as I secured the trim with the upholstery tacks. The waste rate for upholstery tacks was at a shameful 55%. I had to go back to the store twice to buy more tacks and that original 3 packs turned into 8 packs. The problem was that the old wood was so brittle that it would splinter or just not allow the nails or tacks to go in. So many tacks got bent and ruined under the pressure... it was this impossible little task to find the sweet spot and the right amount of pressure to get the tack secure in the wood without it bending the tack or ruining the wood. I was intent on the tacks being perfectly aligned but at some point I had to admit defeat in the exchange for sanity. When Matt walked in on see me crying, I was getting about 6 tacks in per hour... It was tedious. Though it's worth noting, as I have before, that I am an easy cry. Matt walking in on me crying is about as common as pictures of foam topped coffees on Instagram...

And so this is the story of how I learned that upholstery is likely not in my future and how patience is not my virtue. I spent too much money. I wasted too much time. I said too many bad words. But in the end, I got a great little bench in my closet...