I asked about materials, and woman in the shop ended up walking me through the entire project, start to finish. She was great, and I really wanted to buy something from her, but all her fabric was of the older furniture sort. I found a yard and a half of what I now know is green velvet in the discount bin for $10.
At home I just had to cut all the one-by twos and hammer them in place to finish the last structural work on the bed before retiring for a late afternoon of kayaking. Here is Jake testing the bed's strength.
That evening after returning I couldn't wait to get to upholstery, so I tried to see what I could do with some plywood scrap, some Super 77, and some upholstery foam I inherited from the same shop where I bought the planer, bandsaw, and the table saw. Apparently the stuff sticks damn good.
In the morning it was all about upholstery. Mike's Off-the-Cuff Dictionary defines Upholstery as turning hard furniture soft in a way that uses every staple in the shop. First, I needed to cut my foam blocks down to size. The blocks I had were four inches thick, and my headboard needed only two inches, so I needed to cut the blocks in half. I tried a whole slew (sloo? slough?) well, a lot of cutting devices; razor blades, joinery saws, hack saws, but you know what worked best? A Farberware bread knife from the kitchen. It took a bit of sawing, but it worked well.
Click here to download the cut foam desktop wallpaper!
Then the pieces were cut to size, glued together, and glued to the plywood backings. The seams were clean, and the edges were square. So far, upholstery was easy-peasy (peezy? pesey?) anyway, no real difficulty.
The next step called for wrapping the cushions in a layer of batting- I didn't know what that was either- followed by the upholstery fabric, both being stapled on all sides on the back, pulling it tight in a way to try to keep the edges straight.
The piece of fabric I had was a bit too small for me to cut two large pieces out of, so Monika helped me by cutting and sewing a couple smaller bits together.
A lot of stretching and about 200 staples later, I had both layers stretched over the cushion- no easy task since I had barely enough of each fabric. The main lesson I learned here- have extra fabric. If I had cut my pieces bigger I bet I could have made very straight edged cushions, but I'm still pretty happy with how they came out.
All-in-all I'd say getting started with some basic upholstery is easy- of course, these are just simple rectangles. I'm certain it gets more frustrating as you go up from there. The last bits left are finishing work- sealants, stains, and sanding. All to be done early next week.
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