French Settee Upholstery Tutorial Part II

Posted by Mr Wong at 7:41 AM

This is the second part of a tutorial on upholstering.  The first part is the previous post...


OK....now for putting the fabric back on!

First the underside of the chair.  The fabric we pulled off was a black gauzy fabric.  Since we were using drop cloth for the rest of the chair, we just used it for the bottom too.

The underside of the chair was easy.  Using a pattern of the original material, I cut the fabric an inch wider all around, folded the ends under and Mr. Comforts used a pneumatic staple gun to attach it.

The rest of the of reupholstering was a little more difficult.  As you can see from the picture above, when we pulled the fabric taut, it started to fray.  Luckily it was going to be under the braiding.

What I ended up doing was painting white glue all along the edge of the fabric, before we attached the rest.  It stopped the fraying completely.  I think there is a product out there called Fray Stop or something, but I knew white glue would do the trick.

I think it is important to make sure you cut your fabric larger than the pattern you start with, so you have room to maneuver and stretch the fabric really taut.  Tauter than you think you should.

After all of the fabric was stapled on, I used a small pair of scissors (I actually used cuticle scissors) to trim away the excess fabric.

Then I used a hot glue gun to glue the braided gimp over the exposed edges.

And there you have it!  It took 5 months to complete, because the holidays got in the way.  I think if I really worked on it, I could have done it in a week, with the help of Mr. Comforts.

Would I do it again?  Probably.  I actually have a chair and matching footstool to do.  No promises when it will be finished though...

Welcome Home,

Penny