re-upholstery

About a month after Blake and I were married, my parents moved up the hill to a new house. An upgrade in their home meant a simultaneous upgrade for a few of their furnishings, and Blake and I were fortunate enough to be handed down some old pieces of furniture. One item (which I believe had been handed down to my parents around the time of their marriage) was an old sewing cabinet. The sewing machine was no longer intact, but, being a good, solid piece of well-put together wood with four drawers and an accompanying chair, we decided to take it and use it as a desk. For the last year or so, it has housed our computer.

A few months ago the upholstery on the chair pad began to rip. Not knowing exactly how to go about fixing it, and assuming that I lacked the funds to do so, I pretended not to notice as it gradually got worse.



Recently, during a webcam conversation with my family, my mom noticed the state of the chair and said, "You know, Lindsay, you can easily fix that. The seat just pops right off and you can staple a new piece of fabric to it."

Staple fabric?

Sure, she told me. Fold the fabric over and staple it to the bottom. She'd reupholstered it that way years ago to match the room it was kept in. It wouldn't take much for me to go find some fabric to match our new couch and rug to make the chair look as good as new.

Today I braved the tiny fabric store across the street from our apartment. The first time I went in, several months ago, I'd been scared away from the messy piles of unapproachable fabrics and foreign language the proprietor spoke. But this morning I tried again and was happily surprised that the quilting fabrics were now more easily accessible. I picked something out, spent about ten minutes tearing off the old seat cover and stapling on the new, and voila! Good as new!