The Under Belly

In my previous posts, I've said how I hated the underneath of this beast because it had razor sharp edges that would cut the back of my hand if I reached under it.

It took me this project to figure out what the heck the culprit of the cuts was. Over the years, I guessed a protruding nail or a sharp edge from a broken part of the frame. But was I wrong.

First let's talk reconstruction. The more I looked at the condition of the jute straps, the more I decided to not just re-nail the ragged edges but to replace the straps. I'm glad I did.

The "before" pic of the underbelly.

Getting the old jute off. It's at this moment, I wonder if there will be anything left to the original chair.

When I demo-ed the chair from day one, you'll remember I mentioned the little sharp "connectors" that were installed to stabilize the jute with the springs. It was hard to take a picture, because they were tiny things. I researched the evil little buggers. They are called "Klinch It Fasteners" and are attached with a "Klinch It" tool. Both are very expensive and used by professional upholsters. If you look it up, you'll see this product advertised as a time saver instead of hand sewing springs to jute. Since I don't do this for a living, I'm happy to spend an hour doing the hand sewing, and you'll see that later. You can also imagine I am also happy to not have razors on my furniture. I'm thinking this is somewhat of a dated method of attaching jute to springs since this is the only piece of furniture I've ever some in contact with that has these evil little buggers.

Looking inside the structure of the chair, you see this connector that holds the spring to the jute so it doesn't move when a body sits on the chair. Looks innocent right?

Until you turn it over. This is the underneath of the chair, and there are the blades. There are nine springs in this chair and each had two little razor critters.

After exorcising them out of my chair. I cannot begin to tell you how glad I am to have these off the chair. Just working on this chair this week, these things have snagged my skin and clothes.

Springs are flailing. Nails all over the place. Time to bring order to chaos.

Let's start installing the jute.

Strapping jute onto a chair frame. It takes jute and a tightening tool. Since I didn't have a helper to take a picture of me using the tool, I recommend this video for a tutorial on how to use it to achieve super tight straps that give your piece a firm seat. I used a stretcher just like she did. In the video, she uses a stapler, I used nails. Both work.

First strap, many more to go.

You will see the springs are all over the place. But they are tied down by twine. There is actually a method to doing that. The ties on mine were actually still in tact and doing fine so I didn't redo those--one of the few things on this project I won't be. A simple search on YouTube will show you how to tie those down.

At this point, I realize I'm so glad I replaced not repaired. I can see the huge difference in how tight the new jute is. When I look at the "before" picture, the jute had been overstretched over time and resulted in "sinking" into the chair when one sat in it. The new jute will make it feel firm and new.

On the inside, the springs are back in place, but slide around very easily over the slick, tight jute. The previous jute and spring installer used "let's install razor bladed connectors" technique. I went old school. You can also see the ties between the springs are in good shape. 

This is "before" I did my razor blade free technique.

I used a simple sewing technique and tacked down each -spring twice with heavy duty upholstery  thread. I ran a needle and thread "over and under" about 8-10 times twice on each spring. There is a enough "give" so when a person sits, the thread doesn't break from the stress, but each spring won't slide while a person sits on the chair either.

Can you see the black thread tacks?

So next....gads....it's almost overwhelming. The frame repair and painting is done. Now we start upholstering! However, I did get my new foot I mentioned I ordered. Maybe I should make the scads of piping I'll need. Let's do that next.

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Here's a cool little thing I just discovered. I ordered a sample of this vinyl from Warehouse Fabrics Inc. The idea for a project this summer is to paint the worn out dressers in the kids' room and line the drawers with a vinyl that will be cool and offer some durability and ease of cleaning to the inside of the drawers.

I ordered the sample for $1.75. Kids love the idea and look. I recently saw it by the yard at Fabric Depot in Portland.  At Fabric Depot, it's $34 a yard. At Warehouse Fabrics, it's $9.98 a yard. My point is, be sure to shop around a bit. I think it's worth the few dollars and time to order a sample and get great savings as much as possible. Plus, it goes back to my point in my original post...I need my fabrics for these projects to be under $10 a yard to make reupholstering furniture a thrifty venture. Lesson learned...shop around a bit.