The Wing Chair (Part I)

Thanks for all of your great comments and excitement regarding my wing chair upholstery project. I love to know that other people are interested in the same kind of projects as I am! It seems like the only people who know how to do upholstery charge TONS of money and I wanted to teach myself (and you) how so we could have pretty furniture on a budget.
Out with the Old- The Deconstruction.

The Tools You Will Need:
- Needle Nose Pliers
- Small Flat Head Screw Driver
- Hammer
- Something to Put the 1000s of Nails You'll Collect In
- Furry Friend or some kind of entertainment
- Patience (it's really not a bad task, just takes a while)

Here we go:
I've heard it said that furniture upholstery deconstruction is kind of like an onion. You have to peel back the layers, one by one. So take a good look at your chair and find the outermost piece. For me, it was the bottom of the chair. So pull that off, making sure to keep it all in one piece. (You will need this for Part II to measure your new piece of fabric).

At first, I tried to pull out all of the staples with the pliers, but that didn't work out so well, so I relied on the lovely screw driver and hammer method. I just wedged the screw driver under the staple and then tapped the (non-metal) end of the screw driver until it forced the staple out of the wood. And sometimes I had to use my pliers to help get those staples out. Be careful not to split the wood doing this though (angle your screwdriver as parallel to the chair as possible).

*It is important as you take of each piece of your chair off that you keep it in tact and that you number it. The first piece I take off is the bottom so I will put a #1 on a piece of paper and write bottom of chair. I also found it helpful to indicate which side faced the front and back/ up and down. This will all come in handy for Part II.

I just made little labels and stapled them onto my fabric pieces. They looked a little something like this:

Here is my wing chair without the bottom on it. I think they used gardening cloth? Weird.

And from there, I continued to take off what looked like the next piece over, and over, and over. They really are layered on there, one piece on top of another. It was really incredible though because the deconstruction part taught me everything to know for Part II, the reconstruction. I made sure to take photos of (most) every step so that I could work backwards on the reconstruction of my chair.

Next up was the back of the chair, it had some metal jaw clip things (I don't know the technical term). They really were kind of scary. So be extra careful not to hurt yourself on them.

There were also some cardboard strips on the sides that had been stapled through to keep the lines straight. Make note of everywhere that uses the metal jaws and the cardboard pieces because you will want to replicate what they did when you put yours back together. Unless they did a terrible job, of course. Also keep and mark all of your piping, etc.

The bottom of the back was stapled to the bottom of the chair. Seeing that there were staples everywhere, I knew that the other sides would most likely follow suit... So staple picking I went. Pretty much with this part, the only way you can mess anything up is by ripping the fabric or splitting the wood. So other than that, have a little fun with it. :)

I think that after the back, I did the outside of the wings. They also had that scary metal jaw material. Here are a few photos of them:

I found it helpful to use my pliers to pull off the part with the metal jaws. Didn't really want Tetanus or some other kind of weird disease.

Then, I just kept going and going...

Taking names, numbers and directions.

Oh, and see all that stuffing? This was the good cotton stuffing (not the cheap poly fill stuff). I collected what was salvageable and threw the rest in the garbage. We will need stuffing for Part II.

Then came the arms. At first, I didn't know what to do about the brads, but I got my screw driver and managed to be able to just pry them out. I loved learning how they put the arm pieces on there. Once you see how they did everything, you will see it's really quite simple... That, and you'll never look at upholstered furniture the same way. Your mind will be able to look at a piece of furniture and dissect how it was made. Man, we're getting cool. 

So I removed all the tacks. And then the fabric just came right off to reveal this. Remove the styrofoam, but label and keep it for later.

Now it should look something like this. So keep on peeling.

At various times during my deconstruction, I turned the chair on it's side, upside down, you name it... whatever is easiest for you to reach your staples, just go for it. The chair is light and your back will thank you.

Off with the side...

Off with the wings... (more scary jaw teeth).

Here's where I stopped the other day. Haha... what a disaster! Cute little helper though, huh?

Then I took off the inside wings, inside arm pieces, and the seat piece and I was DONE.

You can discard all of the foam and filling if you choose. My chair had been very lightly used, so I am just going to keep it and supplement the batting to make it plush. That may gross some of you out, but I promise it doesn't stink. That, and you probably sit in the chairs at the Dr.s office. Those HAVE to be WAY grosser.

Here's our completely stripped down wing chair. Deconstruction complete.

It's funny writing about it now because it seems so quick and easy. And this really is a simple task... It's just not that quick. I think totally I devoted somewhere around 6 hours pulling staples out of my chair. (In smaller increments though... I can't be still that long!) I would also recommend turning on a good tv show or something to keep you company. Or find a little friend... like mine.

Hope you have a great time deconstructing your wing chair! Let me know if you have any questions and I will do my best (with my limited knowledge base) to help you out.

Update: Check Out Part 2 of my wing chair reupholstery tutorial.