The Ugly Chair Adventures (or Misadventures): Episode V - The Empire (of staples) Strikes Back

When I began this adventure, I had no idea that upholstery was basically all staples. And then more staples. I'm fairly certain whomever upholstered this chair initially was a toddler with a staple gun. Sheesh! I spent a total of about 10 hours Saturday pulling staples. No joke. So, if you're not up for that, do not embark on a full chair reupholster adventure! For in-the-moment commentary, check out the Angela Sews page on Facebook.

My right hand is swollen. Visibly swollen.

It started out fine. After pulling up the staples on the dust cloth underneath, the back was conveniently attached with a metal tack strip, which easily pried off. It all went downhill from there.

At one point, I was like Luke, freezing to death on Hoth, stuffed inside of a dead Taun-Taun (and I thought they smelled bad on the outside). Ok, no, the chair doesn't smell. Thank goodness for that. I can't imagine prying open an "unknown" chair from either dumpster diving or goodwill. Ew.

I started off trying to take pictures and notes of what I was pulling apart, in what order, and how it was put together, as the tutorials I've read suggested. However, after the staples became more and more ridiculous, I found myself more focused on what I was NOT going to do when I put this chair back together (meaning using fewer staples).

Slowly but surely, pieces started to come off when freed from their stapled manacles. 

There was cotton batting used on the back and the bottom, which really stuck to the original fabric. I felt like I was shearing a sheep trying to salvage as much of the batting as possible from the fabric pieces. The foam appeared to be ok, so I don't think I'm going to replace that.

Finally, at 10pm, the last staple was pulled. Well, I may have cheated a little and just ripped the fabric off the last few staples because I was so tired of prying out these damned staples!

As I pulled out the last part (the bottom of the chair), I heard some jingling. For all my efforts, the chair decided to pay me 47 cents. 

Would've been a lot better if I peeled open this chair and found that someone had stashed their life savings in it. Alas, that was not the case. So, I'll put that 47 cents toward the cost of my new fabric.

After pulling the chair apart, I got curious and asked Google how much this chair was worth. I found some listings from the original designer and chairs similar in nature to this one (albeit with significantly less heinous fabric) list around $3,500. 

So, was my 10 hours of staple pulling worth it? Yes. It was a tough battle, but I have prevailed against Darth Heinous. 

Stay tuned for Episode VI...I am hopeful that putting things back together will be the easy part! Time to channel my inner Jedi...