Nursery Chair - Done!

It took a bit of thought and a lot of effort but the comfy chair for Baby Briggs' room is now done! First the legs were painted and the back went on...

Then the sides (these were the trickiest bits)...

You can see springs in the photo above, which is what the seat will rest on but to make it extra secure I attached a layer of strong canvas...

I stitched, and piped, the cushion and voila we have a new chair!

The back was covered with a lovely coffee sack...

And finally, check out this little guy made from the off-cuts of material and some chair stuffing!

Nursery Chair

This week I started work on two mini Parker Knoll armchairs. As I wanted to keep one in our nursery and sell the other, I decided to do mine first so that if I made any mistakes on the first one then I would know how to do the second one better. I am so glad I decided to do this as I have already had to redo a couple of bits! 

It took me nearly two days to strip, due to stubborn staples and an ever growing bump getting in the way of bending and general flexibility! I haven't done enough of the new upholstery (that I'm happy with) to post photos yet but here is how the chair looked while being stripped.

The back

The front

The Parker Knoll!

The back stripped, showing the springs that keep the chair in place when you lean back.

Stripped and ready to be put back together again.

Starting as I mean to go on

I have had a productive start to 2012 and am determined to keep it up. I already know that I like organisation and routine, and with a baby arriving in April, I feel that 2012 needs to be the year that I make every effort to keep organised and be as productive as possible. That includes this blog, so I will be trying my hardest to update it every week... or maybe every two!

So far this year Mr Briggs and I have painted Baby Briggs' room and got started on some decorations (these will be posted soon), had a couple of days romantic break in London, ordered a beautiful cot, looked at pushchairs and ordered a new kitchen. For me one of the most exciting things has been that my tub chair has been sold in the shop in Stonehaven, and someone even went in and asked if there were any more! I can't explain how exciting it is that someone liked a piece of my furniture enough to buy it, and it has really inspired me to get on with more upholstery this year...

So the past two days I have been working on a headboard for our bedroom. This is how our bed used to look, a bit dull.

So I bought some mdf from the nice people at Walker Woodstock - I use the Gorgie road depot where they are all very friendly and will cut your wood to whatever size you need. The full size sheet wouldn't fit in our car so I had it cut in half and when I got home drilled some mdf struts to the back to put it back together, and then glued some foam to it. The foam was ordered from eFoam, who I would definitely recommend as the site is simple to use and they always deliver really quickly.

Next I attached my material - "Linen Stripe" from Laura Ashley. I like working with stripes as they give you something to work to when attaching material to a straight edge.

We don't have much space either side of our bed so instead of having lamps either side we bought some clip on lights from Ikea. I attached two strips of mdf to the back of the headboard so that these could be clamped to the back and allow the light to shine out round the sides of the bed.

Two headboard forks were then attached to the back to allow the headboard to be fitted to the bed. 

And now this is how it looks.....

The artwork in the last photo is a 19th century Japanese block print that I bought from Liberty in London (with some very generous Liberty gift coins a kind friend gave us for a wedding present). I bought it specifically to go in our newly decorated bedroom and was worried the colours wouldn't be quite right - I would say they are pretty much perfect!