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).