real upholstery: round 1

During the summer of 2009, I started accumulating furniture that needed to be refinished or reupholstered. At the time, I was still sharing an apartment with my brother, and most of the furniture we were using was his. Two years later, I am finally living in a place where I want to use this furniture, and I recently got around to the chair below. I purchased it at an estate shop for $60, and the fabrics were super cheap remnants. About a month ago, Mom and I looked at some upholstery books and got to work. After 2 weeks and literally pouring our blood, sweat, and tears into it, I have a beautiful antique horsehair stuffed chair, remade to custom match my living room.

The chair before:

During (this is where we discovered the horsehair and quality cotton batting):

We removed the skirt and unnecessary cording, added larger buttons, made the tufts in the back/seat deeper, and ... after:

The chair is happily nestled in the corner between our two bookcases (one for books, one for games!), and you can see the beautiful print on the back right when you walk in the front door. I have a teeny tiny table that I want to paint and tuck in between the chair and the tall bookcase to make this reading corner complete, but that's another project. For now, I'm so happy and in love with this chair!