Removing Some Of The Mystery From Upholstery and Button-Tufting

By no means will this post be a complete DIY tutorial.  That’s coming up next week (hopefully).  But I’m hoping that today, I can share just enough information to remove some of the mystery from upholstery and button-tufting.  These are topics that seem to frighten even some of the most fearless DIYers, and I assure you, there’s no reason to be fearful of a little upholstery.  And button-tufting?  Pffft….once you understand the basic process, you’ll be fearless! 

First of all, I think the reason that so many people are intimidated by upholstery is because they don’t know what’s underneath all of the fabric.  And very often, we fear what we can’t see.  So, here it is.  They mystery is removed.  When you take the fabric off of a chair, it’ll look something like this…

And if we were to strip that down even further, we would have a very rough wood frame, with springs going across the back, and across the seat area.  All of that foam helps to soften the springs and round out the corners.

Upholstery is done one section at a time.  It helps to think of it in layers.  And the main sections will have areas where the fabric is tucked in and stapled to the chair frame.

Here’s an “in process” example…

Again, I’ll go into more detail later.  These are just the very basics.

This picture of my progress shows four different sections finished—two arms, the seat, and the back, and each one required a separate piece of fabric.  I started with the seat, tucking the fabric through the cracks, and stapling it to the frame.  Next were the arms.  And again, it was wrap, tuck, staple.  And then came the button-tufted back.  On the back, the tufting had to be done first, followed by the tucking and stapling.  Here’s an “in progress” picture of the tufting…

You can see that I just cut a big rectangle of fabric and draped it over the back.  Then using my fingers, I pushed the fabric into the center top hole, and secured it with a button.

And here’s a picture with a bit more progress…

The question people seem to have the most about diamond tufting is how to form the diamonds.  But if you’ll look closely at the picture above, you’ll see that the diamonds begin to form on their own.  Look at the fabric below the second row of buttons.  All I’ve done is take the fabric at points vertical to the top row of buttons and pull straight down.  Those diamonds just appeared.  Now of course, I still had to work with the fabric to get the folds just right, but it doesn’t require nearly as much work as you might think.

Buttons used for tufting generally look like this…

They’re very similar to those two-prong brass paper fasteners that you can buy at an office supply store, but these are made of much stronger metal.  This type of button requires a machine to cover with fabric, which of course, most DIYers don’t have and won’t spend the money on.  So I re-use the buttons, and use my trusty hot glue gun to wrap the new fabric over the button, and glue it on the back.  Works perfectly!

So the prongs of the button are shoved through the fabric and the foam from the front, and then spread apart on the back to secure the button.  From the inside of the chair, it looks something like this…

I hope by now, you’re feeling less intimidated by the tufting!!  Once the tufting is done, it’s just like the rest of the chair parts…stuff the edges of the fabric through the cracks, and staple it to the frame.

Now I don’t want to overwhelm you with info today (because I feel certain that right now you’re feeling a little more confident, right?), but let me quickly explain the difference between button-tufting on a fully-upholstered chair and an accent chair like this one…

With a fully-upholstered chair, the chair actually has room inside of the frame to work and do the tufting.  Then all of that stuff is covered by the back panel.  With an accent chair, obviously you don’t have that luxury.  When these chairs are stripped of fabric, they look like this…

And all of the upholstery on the chair back is done from the front of the chair back, so from the back, it looks like this…  (please note, this is an “in progress” picture, which is why it still looks a bit sloppy.)

So working from the front of the chair back, the first thing that goes on is the fabric that will be seen from the back of the chair.  On top of that goes a layer of very thin foam (or batting), and then on top of that is the tufted back.

The tufting for an accent chair like this is done separately on a piece of chip board…

And then once the tufting is done, the chip board is stapled to the chair frame, and then the raw edges of the fabric are tucked into a carved out “channel” in the chair frame and covered with cording.

So has this helped you any?  Did it remove some of the mystery of what lurks underneath all of that fabric?  Does button-tufting seem a little less daunting than it did before?  Again, I’ll have more thorough tutorials coming up next week (one for each of the chairs above), but the best way to learn really is by trial and error.  (Yes, I’m speaking from experience.   I’ve made countless errors that have all helped me learn the process a bit better.)

The link party is coming up this afternoon at 1:00(ish)!!  I’m excited to see what y’all have been working on! 

I’m linking this post to Tips & Tutorials Tuesday at Home Stories A To Z.