A new project!

Over the weekend Mike and I pulled the HUGE chair out of our garage that we liberated from a front verge a few years ago. We've been keeping the chair for years because the style is so beautiful and unusual, we knew it would make a spectacular piece of furniture, once restored.

I only realised what a big project this will be after completing my upholstery course recently and looking at the chair again over the weekend. Here is one 'before' picture although it doesn't show the split in the wood on one arm that will need to be repaired ASAP. 

It took me nearly an hour just to pull out the staples holding the row of velvet shown on the top back rung - I wonder how many months the project will take in total?! I'll keep you updated as I go.

Since I'm still catching up on my #restyle2013 posts here are my pics for 8th and 9th August: a scarf and bag. I have bought MANY scarves and even more bags from op-shops over the years but here are two that I use very regularly. 

The scarf is a fab 70s print and is made from polyester; the bag is a Fiorelli purse that reminds me of a miniature bowling bag. I've owned both items for too long to remember how much I paid for them but I can guarantee it was well under $10 for each.

Upholstery Course Result: view my amazing bench!

On Saturday I finished my Upholstery Course at the Perth Wood School and am thrilled with the result. The course took an extra week (five Saturday afternoons instead of four) to complete, however the time spent learning the details was definitely worth it.

The toolkit we used to make the benches were for sale so I bought mine (for $320AU). This included:

• an apron or 'pinny' made from leather which holds the tack hammer, scissors and staple removers
• tool basket for needles, loose tacks, staples etc.
• tack hammer
• scissors
• staple remover
• pincers
• regulator
• buttoning needle
• hand-made web stretcher
• the pneumatic staple gun

Thus, the first purchase as an upholsterer has been made. I've already started listing the materials I will need to source, cost and purchase to cover my next project: a huge armchair.

I think it is important to start on that project in less than two weeks so I don't lose the momentum of the course. Randa has been kind enough to give us her email address so we can stay in touch, which I imagine will come in handy when I need help.

I'm still contemplating starting a home business doing the furniture upholstery at weekends; most nice fabric stores in Perth only sell wholesale so I would need to in order to buy the nicer fabrics available. In the meantime I'll stick with lower-end fabric and online stores until I can test the market.

Here is my finished bench! (Randa did the corner folds for me).

Prayin' for Rain

I feel like a real farmer now - I've spent half my week talking or thinking about rain. Luckily it's not because our livelihood depends on it raining (yet), but because if it rains, we don't have to go down to The Paddock to water the plants this weekend.

It has been an exhausting few weeks since we planted the 200 trees and shrubs, which is something I hadn't mentally prepared myself for. I had realised it would be exhausting actually putting in the 200 plants, so I took a week off and made sure all preparations that could be done ahead of time were done.

What I didn't consider was how the exhaustion of that one activity would carry forward for the next few months while we try to keep our baby trees alive. So I went ahead and made my 60 kays in 30 days commitment (I'm nearly finished!) without thinking I wouldn't be around at weekends to put in the kilometres.

I also jumped at the chance to move my upholstery course forward to June (from October) when someone else pulled out of the class - once again, without considering how this would affect our time at weekends for watering (answer = badly).

So after our disastrous after-upholstery 3 hour drive to The Paddock last weekend (just to find the neighbours cows had trampled our precious babies) we have been PRAYING for rain this week (and this is from a buddhist and an atheist).

Tomorrow night is our work Christmas-in-July party so I will be doing my rain-dance ALL night long in the hope that it rains in Woodanilling and we don't have to do the late drive again this Saturday night.

I'll keep you posted!

AnnaKist Upholstery?

I'm thinking about setting up a business. Over the last few days I've been looking for fabric for the Upholstery Course I'm attending. Of course I want the fabric to be fabulous so I'm calling/emailing/visiting all the gorgeous fabric stores I can find; there's just one problem... most of them only sell to businesses!

Even the ones that DO sell to people then charge exorbitant (i.e. recommended retail price) per metre for the fabric in comparison to the wholesale price. Then there is all the equipment required for upholstery - if I'm going to do upholstery at home then I'm going to need to purchase it, at least if I were a business then the cost of the equipment would be tax deductible.

My understanding is that to set up a business you need to plan to make a profit (and not just do the work as a hobby). Well I DEFINITELY plan to make a profit out of upholstery, I'm hoping it will remain an income source that will help me move to the country a bit sooner.

I will need to continue my full time job for the foreseeable future but making a profit from upholstery jobs at the weekend still seems a possibility. Of course I'm getting WELL ahead of myself here; I've attended one upholstery class out of four and am super excited about how much I enjoy it.

Everything always seems like fun at first (OK, not EVERYTHING!) so I will definitely need to wait until the honeymoon period is over with upholstery before making any big decisions. But there is nothing to lose from looking into the costs and options involved in a company, should I decide to start one in the future.

Do you have any advice?

Upholstery 101

Over the weekend I attended the first of four Saturday afternoon upholstery courses organised by Perth Wood School and it was so much fun! The tutor Randa was so passionate about soft furnishings and her excitement was catching. Luckily the course also involved enough physical work to keep us warm since it was a very cold day in the workshop.

Perth Wood School supplied the benches (like a long ottoman) that we are learning to upholster. I’m taking detailed notes to help me remember all the steps; I’ve done enough courses to know that if you don’t repeat the steps you learnt very quickly after leaving, you forget and lose confidence quickly.

Since I have a large chair base at home (that I found on a verge) which needs to be fully reupholstered, I should be using the skills I learn within a month of leaving. But in case I don’t remember all the steps I’m writing everything down and taking pictures as I go.

Randa is teaching us to upholster with minimal waste and using natural materials (as much as possible), which is exactly my style so I’m thrilled to have a like-minded teacher. I’m already looking forward to our next class on Saturday, and in the mean time I’m window shopping for fabrics.

I’m so excited I’ve even started a new Pinterest board for inspiration. I’ve been dreaming of having some Emily Ziz wallpaper in my new house one day but maybe this is an opportunity to use one her patterns in a fabric instead?

Here are some of my Emily Ziz favourites