This may be a short posting; I’m having an early night, retiring injured, as indeed we both are after some extreme upholstery.
You never think of dining chairs as dangerous, do you? Five trillion years ago they were a wedding present along with the table and for the last —years I have used them thoroughly, every day, even, upon occasion to dine at whilst sat upon. There are six chairs and a six foot rectangular table which have been everything from a schoolroom for tutees and foreign students, to a homework station to a dressmaking table, a saw bench, a model room, a sewing table, a painting table and a work station for every type of miniature craft you can imagine. There have been very few days in the last 35 years (whoops, that slipped out) that I have not made, created, invented or taught something at that table, sitting on those chairs.
And boy do they look it.
The table will have to be resurfaced eventually, though while I am still pitting and scarring it on a daily basis, it seems a trifle pointless to do so. The chairs, however, have been recovered at least three times, on each occasion by covering on top of the original fabric. Juxtaposition to the new kitchen is making everything look old and shabby (especially the residents). The time had come, I decided, to recover the chairs, properly.
What possessed me to do this instead of a speedy bodge, I cannot imagine. Anyway, each pine chair was duly lifted onto the table and thoroughly washed. Which was more amazing, the blackness of the six buckets of water or how pale the pine at the end, is a toss up. Then each seat was removed, revealing unspeakable filth. How guests have not gone away with bubonic plague at least, I cannot imagine.
And here comes the tricky bit. Under the green velvet covers I last put on with my old office stapler and a hammer were the originals. Somehow the manufacturers had been in possession of a stapling machine that could weld a fabric apparently made of wire to the foundations of the universe with countersunk staples. Brilliant.
Prior to reupholstering the dining chairs I had reupholstered the footstool; to get my eye in. Now when you look at a deeply sunken nail and your pliers and the claw of your hammer touch it not, you cast about you for a tool with a thin end, in order to give the sunken nail the thin end of the wedge treatment. I chanced upon an old kitchen knife, a bradawl, scissors and, naturally, being a miniaturist, tweezers. Absolutely everything except the tweezers slid off the nail with a thrilling and unpredictable suddenness, until, during the course of extracting all the nails I developed a method of inserting the tweezers and wiggling until sufficient nail head was visible to grab with the very end of the long nosed jewellery pliers and lever out, where necessary, with bigger pliers. I got a system going.
Therefore, when tackling the countersunk staples on the dining chair seats, I merely took to the table: tweezers, two pairs of pliers and a bin. The staples being so impressed (which is more than I was) the encouragement of them to leave their home of 35 years was accompanied by some mighty squeaks and groans. These woke the other half from his nap in front of a war film and caused him to arrive in the dining room well-rested, full of attack and in advice mode.
35 years ago I’d have argued with him, he’d have stormed out to the pub and I’d have flounced off. But if you hang around each other long enough you learn to keep stum and watch the show.
It was quite a short one. It took him five minutes to fetch an impressive armoury of tools, adopt the ‘determined but wise’ face and set about the first staple with the biggest hammer we’ve got and a small but excessively sharp bradawl. And for lo! To chase the bradawl across the surface with a mighty blow of the hammer so that it was deflected across his hand, through his finger, under the nail and out the other side was the work of a mere five seconds.
The amount of blood was so impressive he didn’t even need to swear. It took half an hour to sort him out and bandage him up, including the ten minute debate about whether we should go and sit in the hospital for an hour or two or not. In the end I stuck him together and he retired to bed.
My injuries are a sore shoulder (from the force required to lever up several hundred staples, individually) and a bruised hand (from pushing the end of the tweezers, even in thick gardening gloves it hurt.) I’m waiting for my lungs to clear of the noxious yellow powder that the original foam padding had turned into and the exhaustion that set in after two solid days of strong arm stuff will hopefully disappear overnight.
It was a great workout and the other half has progressed to bandage removal to ‘let the air get at it’ and he’s stopped wincing every time he looks at his finger, which is nice.
And the chairs are thickly padded and really comfortable and the tiger patterned craft fabric which was half price in the sale plus an extra fiver off with the voucher, gets less dreadful every time you see it. There’s even a possibility we’ll get used to it over the next 30 years.
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JaneLaverick.com – handy.