An Upholstery Primer #2: Prep the furniture

When I was stripping a couch I found a hunk of wood hanging loose into the guts of an arm.

I took off some more fabric so I could see what the piece was all about.

This piece of wood was not holding the frame together or support your weight. It’s only purpose was to help shape the padding on the inside arm. That qualifies it as a minor repair. If I get a major repair later – I’ll walk through it with in this blog.

The Wood had pulled away from the framing staples.

I just fitted the two pieces back together and pushed them back into place. This action shoved the wood back onto the staples.

This is what the break looked like afterwards.

The rest is the repair – A picture tells a thousand words – so here’s 3.

I used el Cheapo screws and a head broke off. It didn’t mater, The rest of the screw was doing it’s job.

My friends – especially you guys from lumberjocks. You may think I just committed a heinous misdeed. You would never do that to a finely crafted table leg. This stuff will never be seen and that board is now doing it’s job better than ever before. Save the time and get it done so you can move on. This is my furniture and I have 100% confidence that the quick fix will hold for the life of the couch.

-- A year into redoing my home - a year to go.

If you are stripping a piece of furniture and you find rusty staples, it could mean many things but most often it means a pet marked it’s territory.

Look for stained wood. Yuck. I hit it with clorox.

The “Stain” will foam up. Get it good and clean. Get the bleach off as well because – it’s bleach. ;)
Smell goes away and the area is disinfected. You can now upholster over the area.

Did I say lockjaw before? Be super careful around those staples. They usually don’t want to come out of the wood in one piece so hammer them all the way in.

-- A year into redoing my home - a year to go.

What glue did you use? Do you find one better the the other, or are they all the same when it comes to repairing breaks like that?

-- No matter how many times I measure, I always forget the dimensions before I cut.

I just throw on some Tightbond II. Any carpenters gle is fine but I like it to set quickly. You notice I wasn’t too concerned about spreading the glue really well. Honestly, I should be more meticulous about things like that, but then again, I feel good about the bond.

-- A year into redoing my home - a year to go.