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COMPLETE STEP - BY - STEP
Upholstery
COMPLETE STEP - BY - STEP
Upholstery
DAVID SOWLE and RUTH DYE
Published in 2005 by
New Holland Publishers (UK) Ltd
London · Cape Town · Sydney · Auckland
Garfield House, 86–88 Edgware Road
London, W2 2EA
United Kingdom
80 McKenzie Street, Cape Town 8001
South Africa
14 Aquatic Drive, Frenchs Forest, NSW 2086
Australia
218 Lake Road, Northcote, Auckland
New Zealand
Copyright © 2005 text: David Sowle and Ruth Dye
Copyright © 2005 photographs: New Holland Publishers (UK) Ltd
Copyright © 2005 New Holland Publishers (UK) Ltd
David Sowle and Ruth Dye have asserted their moral right to be identified as the authors of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers and copyright holders.
Print ISBN: 978-1-8433-0929-1
eISBN: 978-1-6076-5306-6.
Senior Editor: Clare Hubbard
Editorial Direction: Rosemary Wilkinson
Step-by-step photographs: David Sowle
Finished projects and close-ups: Shona Wood
Design: Peter Crump
Illustrations: Stephen Dew
Location: pp 51, 75, 83, 91, 117, 141 www.lightlocations.co.uk
Location: pp 35, 43, 59, 67, 101, 109, 149 www.1st-option.net
Production: Ben Byram-Wigfield
Reproduction by Modern Age Repro House Ltd, Hong Kong
Note
The author and publishers have made every effort to ensure that all instructions given in this book are safe and accurate, but they cannot accept liability for any resulting injury or loss or damage to either property or person, whether direct or consequential and howsoever arising.
Thanks to GP & J Baker for the upholstery fabric and to Andrew Muirhead & Son for the leather used in the projects.
4 Overstuffed chair with springs
15 Buttoned leather chesterfield
Introduction
If you want to learn upholstery all you need is a book, some basic tools and a chair. That’s how we began, and this is the book we wish we’d had.
Our upholstery business started when Ruth decided she wanted to have a go at upholstering a chair. I went over the road to a friend who had an antiques shop and asked if Ruth could have a chair, and we hunted around local junk shops for secondhand tools. Our friend gave me an old oak carver and a Victorian nursing chair from the basement and said Ruth could do what she liked with them. It seemed to take days just to strip them, but finally they were both clean of their old upholstery. Ruth asked another friend, who made cushions and curtains, to order some materials from her supplier and slowly, by following the instructions in an old upholstery book and plenty of trial and error, Ruth reupholstered the two chairs. Neither could be described as fine examples, but, our friend was more than happy to put them in his shop and when they sold – as they both did – he split the proceeds with us.
From then on he supplied as much upholstery work as Ruth could handle. Small things at first, but many and varied – boxes, piano stools, fire surrounds with cushion tops – anything bought cheap at auction and in need of upholstery. If the finished article sold in