When I was in high school (warning: long back story follows; actual upholstery project after the jump) my grandmother gave me an old wingback chair she no longer had room for in her apartment. It had a hideous circa-1960 red and orange floral pattern, but it was a great chair for reading. I took it with me to college, where I sat in it to do physics homework and watch Eagles games on TV. My roommate christened it the Comfy Chair (as in “tie her to the comfy chair“). Later, it moved with me into Kathy’s apartment, and when we got our first dog Feynman, it became her chair. Feynman sat in it with her head propped on the arm, watching the parking lot through the sliding glass door. When we moved into a rental house Feynman, never a big one for unexpected change, panicked. She whined and paced until she saw her chair in the living room of the new house, parked by a new window, and then she climbed into it and went to sleep.

About that time I started watching Furniture on the Mend on The Learning Channel, which starred two guys from Philadelphia who refinished and reupholstered old furniture. The upholstery guy, Ed Feldman, was the kind of guy who gave the impression that if he could do this, then surely you could too. Obviously he was highly skilled, but he didn’t go all Norm Abrams on you with eleven billion dollars worth of power tools and high production values and wise safety advice; he was just this guy from Philly.

So I figured, what the hell? I reupholstered the Comfy Chair. The old fabric was worn, dirty, and stained with dog drool, especially on the arm nearest the window. I bought some less-hideous but deeply discounted fabric (I was in graduate school), a dark blue with a cream pattern that was not quite floral, removed the old fabric piece by piece, and reupholstered the chair. Feynman, of course, freaked out. She glared at me for the duration of the project, even in her sleep. In the end it looked pretty good, certainly better than it had looked before.

Feynman quickly crudded up the new fabric. The chair moved to a new house and sat by two more windows. And then the Monkey came along, and we ran out of space in the house. Something had to go. I had long since realized that I should have replaced the padding and springs when I reupholstered the Comfy Chair, and even Feynman had moved on to bigger and better furniture. I tried to give it to charity, but no one wanted it. (The indignity!) So I trashed it.

I miss that chair. More than the chair I miss the idea of the chair. I miss having clear evidence in my living room that I am the sort of nutjob who will reupholster furniture for fun. I miss having a comfortable chair to read in, a chair I spent hours and hours working on and can never sit in because the dog has claimed it. Sadie, though she doesn’t realize it, needs a chair of her own if she is to be a full-bore basset hound bitch.

So last winter I cruised a couple of antique stores and came home with a $75 wingback chair. Structurally sound, more or less — nothing a little glue and a couple of screws couldn’t fix. The fabric was nasty — ugly, stained, and a little mildewy — but that was the point; that’s why the chair was only $75 and why I was going to reupholster it. I figured I’d done this before, I knew what I was doing, and I could afford better fabric. No big deal. I’d have it done in a month.

I bought some very nice fabric for it — at $30/yard, but I totally scammed Joann’s with a half-price coupon. That little newspaper insert cost them $150. If they stop printing coupons, blame me.

And then the gods laughed. Or at least Ed Feldman laughed.

I took digital photos of the chair from all angles so I’d remember how it was finished originally once the fabric was off. I removed the fabric, carefully, labeled each piece, and made notes about how it was attached and in what order I removed it. So far, so good.

Then I discovered that everything underneath the fabric was also nasty. The cotton batting was nasty. There was some kind of shredded woody stuff used for padding that was extremely nasty. The burlap and webbing were nasty. The twine tying the springs was worn, and I accidentally cut a couple of pieces of it getting the burlap off. When I was done removing everything nasty, I had bare wood and springs.

Here is an interesting fact about cushy chairs and couches that I did not know until March: The springs are individual coil springs mounted on the bottom of the chair that are tied together with twine to make a coherent seat. If you don’t tie them, they just flop around and you don’t have a chair, you have a mess. So I had to learn to tie springs. But tying springs is not something that normal people do. It is something that only professionals do. It is hard core. It is quite difficult to do well, so that you end up with a comfortable seat. And while you can buy everything else you need to upholster a chair at a Joann’s or a Hancock Fabrics, you have to order spring twine — yes, you need special twine — over the internet.

The bare wood frame and floppy springs sat in my shed for two months while I gathered the mental energy to deal with tying upholstery springs. It took me a used book from Amazon, three tries, and a lot of fiddling, but I finally got a flat seat. I’ll spare you the details, but basically you tack the twine to the frame, loop it through and tie it to various parts of particular springs, and then tack it down again at the other end; one twine per row, one per column, plus the diagonals. Here it is:

Next I had to build up the padding, which was easier, but my upholstery book didn’t go into much detail on how to do it. I suppose it’s different for every piece of furniture and you just have to experiment, which is what I did, but still, if you can provide engineering analysis of various types of foam surely you can offer a few more cutaway photos of foam and padding? But after some experimentation and more interesting discoveries (did you know that 3M makes a special spray adhesive specifically for upholstery foam? Now you do!) I got the chair padded.

To test it out I put the seat cushion foam in place and a comforter over top, and I am pleased to say that it is actually going to be a comfortable chair.

Which is good, because I am now into this $75 chair for about $600.

Next: cotton batting and muslin.

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