I'm Starting with the Fan in the Mirror

Hopefully, thanks to the title of this post, you are now singing the Michael Jackson song...I found this mirror at Goodwill for $8. I think it has a unique shape. While it looks like it has a wooden frame it is actually plastic. "Wood grain" texture and all!

Here is a before picture. It is hanging on my fireplace (sorry for the ceiling fan reflection but that's what gave me the inspiration for the title!) as that was its original intended home.

I originally painted this mirror red to match the two red vases on the mantle. I'm a huge fan of mirrors - there's at least one in every room of my house - but this one just wasn't working on the fireplace so I took it down. Maybe it was the reflection of the fan that kept staring at my every time I looked up.

I decided instead to hang it behind the tomato red bed. I painted it the same color as the nightstand and glazed it in my favorite Martha Stewart glaze.

Here's a photo after I had painted and had just started to glaze.

And here is the after! I started with a fan in the mirror and I asked him to change his ways (sorry, sometimes I just can't help myself). I like the mirror much, much better in its new home. Plus, that wall above the bed was looking a little bare!

Upholstery and a Lesson In 8-way Hand Tied Springs

Hello friends and welcome back! I don't know about where you are, but we've had a COLD winter down here in the deep south. Well, by our normal standards at least! Today I'm sharing with you a rocker I upholstered for my friend that involved a little 8-way hand tied spring action. Here is a before picture.

Here is a close up of the upholstery.

You can see the fabric has become threadbare and is held in place by upholstery tacks. Once I got all that upholstery off, here's what I was left with.

At one point these were 8-way hand tied springs but time and dry rot had taken their toll. Most of the strings holding the springs in place had broken. If you aren't familiar with 8-way hand tied springs it is where each spring is individually hand tied and set in place. 8-way hand tied springs are a hallmark of fine furniture and are praised for both their comfort and durability. I removed all the old strings and nails and was left with a clean slate. You can see this is a true 8-way system as the springs themselves are set into the frame of the rocker.

Next, the process of hand tying the springs. In an 8-way system each spring is tied front to back, side to side, and diagonally two ways, 8 in all. Each point where the string touches the spring is considered one of the "ways". Each row is tied with a single string. I didn't do a tutorial as there are already several good ones online. Just Google "8 way hand tied springs how to" and several results will show up, including details on how to make those knots. Here's the final result.

Now, is this a perfect job? Absolutely not. Am I proud? Darn right! I am helping preserve a dying art!
Once the springs were retied it was time to move on to the upholstery.

For such a small upholstery job this one was quite difficult. The sides have a slight curve and in the back and at the arms there isn't much room to work. However, once the fabric was down, I chose not to use the upholstery tacks on the side. Instead, I chose to cover the staples with a row of double cording. And here is the final result.

Much improved I think! And pretty comfortable with those 8-way springs!

Bench Players

Today I'm show casing a recent project where I took two chairs and made a bench out of them. The chairs themselves have a low back so I thought they might look a little odd pushed up to a table. Plus, I didn't really have need of them as table chairs!

Here are a few before pictures of the chairs. You can see they have great detail on the front legs!

I spray painted two of the chairs black. When making the bench I wanted something that could be easily dismantled should they ever need to be turned back in to two chairs. I brainstormed a little bit and decided to just attach the board that would become the bottom of the bench to the current seat bottoms! One screw later...boom!

Then all that was left to do was make my bench cushion. If you haven't followed my upholstery series, you can learn all about the process here. I chose a sunny yellow chevron fabric. Here is the final result.

While I personally love the end product I've gotten mixed results from others. Some love it, some dislike it. What do you think?

60's Mod Couch Reupholster -- Final Installment

You can view the other installments of this series here:
Installment 1
Installment 2
Installment 3
Installment 4
Installment 5
Installment 6
Installment 7

Today is our final installment of the couch reupholster series!! It's been a long journey. Probably over 80 hours of work, but the end product is absolutely beautiful. Plus you just couldn't find a couch built with this kind of craftsmanship now.

Today we are going to make the couch cushions. All 8 of them! The couch cushions are the only thing on the entire couch that we used a pattern for. We ripped out the seams and even though the cushions were two different sizes we went ahead and wrote the piece on them so there would be absolutely no confusion. We then ironed them flat. (The picture below shows them before we ironed them.)

Once they were ironed out flat we pinned them to our fabric and cut out around them.

To find out how much cording you'll need, measure around all four sides of your cushion, double that, and then multiply it by the number of cushions you need to make. I can't recall exactly how much cording we made, but it was a LOT. In the multiple, multiple feet range. I explained in Installment 7 how to make cording.

Once you have your cording made and your cushion pieces cut out the fun can begin. First take your cording and sew it in place so that the edge of your seam allowance on the cording lines up with the edge of your seam on your cushion piece. You'll be using the cording foot on your sewing machine and butting that up against the cording as shown in the picture below.

When you go around your corners you'll need to make several small cuts to the cording allowance so that it will make the curve. You might not get the stitching in the corner tight enough the first few times. If you don't that's ok, you can go back and add a few extra stitches later.

When you get to the place where the cording will overlap, you'll need to join them as shown in Installment 7. You'll just keep on sewing right past the joint, maybe an inch. It's best to have this joint in the middle part of the back of the cushion, that way it won't be seen as much. Remember to reverse the stitching a little bit and then go forward again so the seam won't unravel.

Now to make the side piece of the cushion with the zipper. You could have kept and used a pattern piece here, but instead, we measured the height of our cushion and added 2 inches to this measurement. Fold the material in half and pin it, then run a seam all the way up the fabric, one inch in from the folded edge. At the beginning and end you'll need to reverse the stitch so it won't come unsewn.

After you have sewn your seam all the way down take scissors and cut right in the middle, all the way up the fold.

After you have cut up the fold, take and spread apart the flaps, laying the piece out flat.

You can see there's a seam right in the middle of the fabric. Now you'll need to cut a piece of continuous zipper tape to size. (If you're reusing your old zipper this section won't apply.) Here is a picture of the roll of the zipper tape so you'll know what I am referring to.

Cut your piece  of continuous zipper tape to size. Open up the ends about two or three inches. Work the zipper pull on. There is an arrow telling you what direction you should go. Once you get it started, pull the zipper apart a little more and then work the pull up again. Continue this process until you are about three-fourths of the way down the zipper. Once you have completed this -- join in here if you are reusing an old zipper -- turn the zipper upside down so that the pull is facing the fabric and your zipper is in the middle of the seam.

 Using a zipper foot attached to your sewing machine run a seam down each side of the zipper. Remember to reverse at the beginning and end so your seam won't unravel.

After you have ran your seams down the sides of your zipper, flip the fabric over and rip out the seam running down the middle of your fabric. You should have two nice folds with a zipper in the middle of them. Continue working your zipper down the rest of the way, stopping until you are about an inch from the bottom. You can also hand sew a seam horizontally across the zipper to keep it from coming all the way off.

For the rest of your side bands you'll need to take your measurement and add one inch (for a half inch seam allowance on either side). Now you simply need to sew the pieces together. You'll want to put the zipper piece in the back, where you cording joint is. Sew your sides on to the top and bottom piece. Remember it's kind of counter intuitive as you'll be sewing inside out and you'll need to flip your cushion back outside in when you are finished.

FINALLY..here is the finished product!! Much, much improved from it's previous 60's incarnation!

Click here to see the before!

60's Mod Couch Reupholster -- Installment 7

Welcome! We are nearing the finish line on our sofa. In this installment we are going to put the cording on the bottom of our sofa and attach the dust cover to the bottom of our sofa.

First you'll need to measure around the entire bottom of your sofa to get the length of your cording. Remember the saying -- Measure twice, cut once! Add 5 inches to your measurement just in case. Since our couch was over 7 feet long I had a lot of cording to make! A LOT!!

To make your cording you'll first need the plain cord. (Sometimes called upholstery piping cord, welt cord.) We used 5/32" cord. Cut out a 2 1/2 inch wide strip of fabric to the length you need. Unless you have really long fabric you'll need to join strips together. Center your cord in the fabric and wrap your fabric around the cord. Use the proper size cording foot (you can also use a zipper foot) on your sewing machine and sew as close as possible to cording for the entire length. When you have all of your cording made cut off the excess fabric, leaving a 1/2 inch allowance. 

Take your cording and, starting in the back, staple it to the bottom edge of your sofa. Leave about an inch from the edge to the first staple.

When you go around the legs of your sofa cut off the excess, getting as close to the actual cording as possible.

Once you make it all the way around your sofa you'll need to join your cording together. To do this cut off most of the excess cording leaving about an inch overlap. Then take and use a seam ripper to rip the seam out, go back about two inches past where they overlap. Next take the actual cord and cut it as close as possible to where it will join with the other end. 

Then take the fabric from the piece you have cut and fold it over to make a nice clean edge.

Take the fabric on your loose cording and wrap it around the fabric on your stapled cording. Remember, you stapled back about an inch from the edge so you should have room to do this. Your cord ends should just about touch. If you find you left too much cord cut to adjust.

Next we are going to take a small strip of cardboard and staple it around our 1/2 inch seam on our cording. This is so that the cording allowance won't droop down and be seen. Now you are done with your cording. 

Next you will put the dust cover on the bottom of your sofa. We saved the dust cover that we took off the sofa but it smelled like it had been stored in a musty basement for YEARS so we opted not to use it. Instead, we used landscape fabric. Yep, you read that right, landscape fabric.

Measure, cut to size and staple on. You'll need to make careful cuts around your sofa legs. Bam! Dust cover complete.

Next installment we will make our cushions and complete our sofa!!!