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).

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