I have long had an affinity (addiction) to fabric. I know a few other people like this. We gather material from fabric stores and other sources, not sure what we’re going to use it for, just because we love it. We have a bin of loose fabric, ready for the next project.
For some people, this affinity is put to use by making clothing and accessories. For me, I love to use fabrics in home décor. Curtains, pillows, and reupholstering furniture. The texture, the weight, the colors, the pattern. It all adds so much dimension and interest to pieces, without much work.
Today, I’m sharing two projects I recently completed. The first is two metal chairs that my husband received from his great aunt. The pink pleather seats were ripped and the chairs were gathering dust in our garage. They are very sturdy, though, and a nice, small size, so I decided to use some of my fabric from my bin to recover them.
Recovering a chair seat is one of the easiest upholstery projects out there. You just detach the seat from the chair and either remove the old fabric and attach the new, or… you can even just put the new fabric over the top. Then, you just pull it tight and staple onto the bottom of the seat, put it back on the chair and there you have it!
Another project I worked on is this bench. I purchased the bench off Craigslist six years ago, and it came in a sort of canvas fabric with French writing all over it. I’m a bit wary of having words in a foreign language in my house when I don’t know what they say. I only took one semester of French, and was not up to determining what this particular bench might be stating. I also don’t really have much of a French-country vibe going on in my house (not to say that style isn’t lovely). So, I always wanted to reupholster it.
I wound up using the scraps from pillows I made for my living room with a floral velvet fabric that I ordered from Spoonflower. Very moody and dark, which I love. I didn’t have enough fabric left to cover the whole bench, however, so I decided to use florals on the sides and use a green velvet I picked up on clearance for the top. I planned to add contrasting buttons to tuft the top of the bench, but haven’t done that yet. I haven’t quite found the right style of button that makes sense to me, so I’m leaving the top smooth for now.
I also tried to add piping to this piece, and failed pretty miserably. So, I went without piping. I learned a lot, though, and I’ll keep practicing so I can hopefully utilize it on a future piece!
Every project has its own lessons that you get to take with you into the next one.
design + surrender 