BED SKIRT FROM DRAPERY PANELS

I did not take a picture of the draperies, but you can see them to the right in the picture below.  My client looked and looked for a suitable fabric to make the bed skirt.  Nothing she found really worked.  Then she noticed how well the draperies matched the comforter, so she went back and got more of the panels for the skirt.  

Getting skirts onto beds is always a challenging proposition.  And king beds are even more so.  I have to say,  I've never seen the job go more smoothly.  Not exactly sure why, but after I got the skirt on the deck and my client's husband came back in the room to help her put the mattress back on, I was on the floor holding the skirt in place.  It never moved, even when the mattress had to be slid over.  Very strange, but very nice!

I do not normally get to take pictures because so many times I simply drop the bedding off and never see the finished product on the bed.  I use duck cloth or denim for the deck, which is a lot more stable than using lining fabric.  Maybe that's why it stayed so nicely in place.  Whatever the case, it looked great and my clients were very happy with it.

OFFICE CHAIRS

When my client called and said she had four chairs, office-style, but used in her dining room, that had separate seat and back cushions, I told her I'd have to come and look at them.  Clearly, this is a reupholstery job, but I thought I could do the back cushion with a slipcover.  Ha!

I knew the seat, though rounded and curved in a way that isn't obvious in these pictures, would be challenging, but, basically, it was just a wrapped seat with welting along the bottom edge.  No problem.

I had to remove the old fabric, which just means a lot of pulling the old staples out with needle-nose pliers.  It also gives me a pattern for the new fabric.  Even after I took the fabric off the backs, I still thought I could slipcover it and then staple it on at the bottom.  Again, ha!  I tried doing it that way, but it simply did not work.  So, I went to UFO to get the metal spiky pieces (don't even know what they are called since I do NOT do upholstery!) and while there I inquired as to the cost of having 4 chairs, with seat and back cushions done, just in case.

What also isn't completely obvious in the pictures is how curved the backs actually were.  I tried and tried to do them.  I spent so much time and effort, and in the end, I had to take the backs down to UFO to be done by professionals.  No matter how I tried, I could not get them to work.  It's not like I didn't already know this, but, truly, I am able to do the very simplest of upholstery.  Anything more, I do not have the ability to do.  I did lose money on the job, and I learned a valuable lesson...leave the reupholstering to those who actually do reupholstering!