Upholstery project, part 1
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. Read on
