2013.11.29 Project - recovering a footstool

What I've been up to ... recovering a footstool.

This is a footstool originally from Vince's Uncle Ray.

I have no idea how it came to us, but we've had it for decades.

I forgot to take a "before" photo,

but I still had the fabric so I laid it on the completed footstool.

An interesting note on the bottom of this stool

says that Uncle Ray re-covered it in 1981.

He must have used the gold and blue fabric I removed.

It feels "right" to update the things we already own,

especially when there is a family history.

It's a simple procedure to re-cover a footstool.
Here is my "how-to" ...

Remove the old fabric if you need to.

Usually the fabric is stapled or nailed to the bottom.

There may be decorative nails around the lower edge.

For this footstool, there were both nails in the bottom

and decorative nails along the lower edge.

Use a hammer (the prying end) to remove the nails on the bottom and

a prybar, hammer, and pliers to remove the decorative nails.

Using the removed fabric as a guide, cut the new fabric.

If you are adding fabric over the existing fabric,

turn the footstool upside down and add several inches all around the shape.

Tape (masking or painter's) the edges so the fabric won't fray.

If you have a sewing machine, run a stitched line around the edge instead.

Center the fabric and begin stapling.

Put one center staple on the long side,

then one center staple on the opposite long side,

then a center staple in each short side.

Pull somewhat tightly so the fabric is taut, but not over-stretched.

Turn the footstool over to check how it looks.

Turn it upside down again and begin adding staples.

Put one on each side of your first staple,

then on each side of your second staple,

then on each side of your centered staples on the short sides.

Turn it over for a visual check.

Keep adding staples a few at a time

until all the fabric on the bottom is stapled in place.

Fold the fabric around the legs as necessary.

Just use your judgement.

2013.11.25 The doors of perception

Art is not to be found by touring to Egypt, China, or Peru;

if you cannot find it at your own door, you will never find it.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

There are things known and there are things unknown,

and in between are the doors of perception.”

~ Aldous Huxley

I know your deeds.

See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut.

~ Revelation 3:8

2013.11.23 Project - making new seats for dining room chairs

What I've been up to ...

covering the seats of 4 dining room chairs.

We have multiple tables for eating as well as crafts and projects.

One table seats 6, the other 8.

However, we don't have that many matching chairs.

So, we have 4 pine chairs, 6 oak chairs, and 4 chairs painted green with caned seats.

At least the green chairs used to have caned seats.

Each table has the natural chairs along the sides and two green chairs at the ends.

With the caning on the green chairs falling apart,

my daughter-in-law, Theresa, and I decided that upholstered seats would save our chairs.

Vince (husband) cut plywood bases for the new seats.

Theresa and I picked out fabric, two different, but coordinated kinds.

With some padding and a stapler, this is the result ...

2013.11.18 Merely a strand of it

You press the button and we do the rest.

~ Kodak advertisement

Man does not weave this web of life.

He is merely a strand of it.

~ Chief Seattle

Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns,

and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

Are you not of more value than they?

~ Matthew 6:26

2013.11.11 Not as a man sees

I use a camera that captures not only pictures, but also imagination.

~ rainfield61 – comment on my blog post: "2013.07.06 What camera do you use?"

If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.

~ Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

... for God sees not as man sees,

for man looks at the outward appearance,

but the LORD looks at the heart.

~ 1 Samuel 16:7b