A couple of weeks ago, I started an upholstery class at the Portside Arts Center.  I am so excited about this for a few reasons.  First, I’ve always wanted to learn how to do upholstery.  In my flea market and yard sale travels, I come across so many stools, chairs and small love seats that I love and can just envision in my house if only it were cleaned up.  Second, I need to clean up and reupholster these very same items that I ended up buying anyway for the time that I learned how to reupholster (trust me, there’s lots of stuff down there).  Finally, it thrills me to be able to pick out fabrics in colors and styles that I like and will blend in my rooms – this makes the possibilities endless.

Much to my delight, Portside Arts Center offers upholstery classes at an extremely attractive price and … they’re right down the street from my house!  So, I thought that I would take you along on the journey of my 10 week class and, as much as I can,  share with you my experience and progress.

This is the chair that I decided to reupholster.  This chair has been in my mom’s basement forever – as you can clearly see.

Remember that I started this class two Tuesdays ago, so the first two classes consisted of completely stripping the chair of its fabric, stuffing and support straps – right down to the frame.  This meant removing all of the nails, tacks and staples that was holding all of this stuff together.  Our classes run from 6pm until 9pm and, for most of us, it took the entire first class and part of the second to do this.  Lots of muscle work!

This is  my “naked” chair.  You can see the zig zag springs in the seat section that are used to support the stuffing that is used for the seat.  There were four springs there, but two of them had lost their uumph and will need to be replaced.  I forgot to take a picture of the old stuffing that I ripped out of the chair, but I can tell you that it was layers of straw, cotton and horse hair stuffing.  And it was old and gross.

Next week I will share with you my next steps and I will take a picture of the fabric I bought to recover my chair.

Before I take off, I want to give a shout out to Portside Arts Center!  This is a fantastic asset to our neighborhood and I am so lucky to have them 5 minutes from my house.  They are a non-profit, 501 (c)(3) community-based educational arts center run by a lovely woman named Kim Creighton.  The Portside offers more than 60 different music, visual and performing arts classes to children, teens and adults.  Check out their website at:  www.portsideartscenter.org