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The well upholstered upholsterer.......
Apr. 18th, 2012 01:03 pmYears ago when a library was closing, it's furnishings were purchased en masse and for reasons unbeknownst to me were shipped to this area and put up for sale. We were are the time in need of shelving and so I went hunting (vini, vidi, emptici - I came, I saw, I purchased). There were two boxy, but spaciously comfortable chairs, very suitable to curl up in and read, for sale for a song. The wood was in great condition as was the hideously ugly vinyl upholstery. I took the pair as well, figuring there was no time like the present to learn how to recover upholstery. I mean, how hard could it be?
Those chairs now live in my sitting room, almost 20 years after I re-did their upholstery. I found a good quality synthetic velvet fabric and screwdriver and staple gun in hand, I disassembled, and recovered the vinyl.
My last foray into recovering things happened when I moved to my current office in the late 90's. I was found a physical therapy table in good repair structurally to use in my pediatrics room, and put new vinyl on it. 14 years later, it still looks good and is functioning well.
I could not say as much for two of my adult exam tables. The front section was so frayed and torn, I needed to so something, but replacing the tables was prohibitively expensive (as in 6-7 grand) and in cursory checks, how the cushioned table top was attached was unclear. Oana recently attacked both the tables with some iron on vinyl, hoping to make them passable, but to my eye, they looked even worse. More important, the texture was even more unpleasant against the skin.
Her attempt to make things better, pushed me to get more aggressive in my efforts to figure out how the tables went together, and to my pleasure the tops were attached with high grade velcro. The tops were pry-able.
Saturday last I attacked the first table.
This Saturday I will attack the second table.
Total cost to re-do both tables; $68 for the vinyl, $16 for the staple gun and 4 hours of my time. To save me $6-7000 bucks I cannot afford to spend, I'd say it's time and money well spent.
Those chairs now live in my sitting room, almost 20 years after I re-did their upholstery. I found a good quality synthetic velvet fabric and screwdriver and staple gun in hand, I disassembled, and recovered the vinyl.
My last foray into recovering things happened when I moved to my current office in the late 90's. I was found a physical therapy table in good repair structurally to use in my pediatrics room, and put new vinyl on it. 14 years later, it still looks good and is functioning well.
I could not say as much for two of my adult exam tables. The front section was so frayed and torn, I needed to so something, but replacing the tables was prohibitively expensive (as in 6-7 grand) and in cursory checks, how the cushioned table top was attached was unclear. Oana recently attacked both the tables with some iron on vinyl, hoping to make them passable, but to my eye, they looked even worse. More important, the texture was even more unpleasant against the skin.
Before
Her attempt to make things better, pushed me to get more aggressive in my efforts to figure out how the tables went together, and to my pleasure the tops were attached with high grade velcro. The tops were pry-able.
Saturday last I attacked the first table.
After
This Saturday I will attack the second table.
Total cost to re-do both tables; $68 for the vinyl, $16 for the staple gun and 4 hours of my time. To save me $6-7000 bucks I cannot afford to spend, I'd say it's time and money well spent.
