Upholstery

“ Linsey woolsey dyed in fast and attractive colour would undoubtedly be a good material for upholstery of simple furniture, because of its strength and durability, but it seems to me its chief mission and probable future is to supply an exceptional art textile; one which has the firmness and flexibility belonging to hand-woven stuffs, and can be at the same time beautiful in colour, capable of hard wear and reasonably inexpensive. ”

“ The parson looked round for a seat, but the chairs were like cottage stools on high legs, and the angular backs looked terribly knife-like.
'Shall I get you a pillow from the next room? Personally I cannot bear upholstery. I cannot conceive anything more hideous than a padded armchair. All design is lost in that infamous stuffing. Stuffing is a vicious excuse for the absence of design. If upholstery were forbidden by law to-morrow, in ten years we should have a school of design. ”

“ The added beauty and comfort given to furniture by upholstery makes work of this character worth while. If period furniture is to be reproduced or modified, the worker must understand the art of upholstering.
The tendency to reproduce or copy good old pieces of furniture should be encouraged, for only in this way may a student obtain a proper background, from which may be developed a new style. New ideas, derived from the best of the old, are likely to serve humanity in the best way. ”

“ Now, if you are some folks that I know, you will be able to establish very comfortable repose on this slender foundation, Nature having so amply furnished you that you are your own feather-bed, bolster, sofa-cushion, and easy-chair, a moving mass of upholstery, wanting only a frame to be set down in and supported. ”

“ Upholstery fabrics were exceedingly rich and gorgeous, Gobelin and Aubusson tapestries, silk velvets, damasks, and brocades being chiefly used. Furniture was upholstered en suite, a common arrangement including one sofa, two arm chairs, and nine stools or tabourets. Etiquette prescribed the use of stools by most members of the court, and prudence demanded it of the ladies, who at this time wore hoop-skirts, so enormous that they couldn't sit in an arm chair. All furniture was placed against the wall, with the center of the room left clear. ”

“ The elegance of the bed depended upon its upholstery. The richest beds were draped with tapestry, silk, damask brocade and velvet, beautifully trimmed with gold and silver braid or lace, narrow silk fringe, or fringe of gold or silver threads, or decorative cords and tassels. Serge, cloth, East Indian goods, linen and cotton materials were also employed. ”

“ Rugs, upholstery and art objects generally require more time for selection than do shoes and socks, more room for display as well. They go, then, quite naturally to the broad spaces of the fourth floor. ”

“ Highly valuable suggestions, and illustrations of smartly furnished sunrooms, can be obtained from books and magazines, and also from the manufacturers of furniture, floor coverings, drapery, and upholstery fabrics and window shades. ”

“ Chairs and sofas should be without elaborate upholstery and hangings, and cushions can be appropriately made of some well-coloured cotton or linen material which wind, and sun, and dampness cannot spoil, and of which the freshness can always be restored by laundering. ”

“ In our use of hangings, upholstery, rugs, etc., the lack of feeling for consistent sizes is still more often apparent. Before [Pg 19] discussing this, let us look for a moment at patterns and motifs as they are used in textiles, wall papers and rugs.
For some unknown reason we have come to believe that there is no beauty in anything in which there is not a pattern plainly visible, forgetting that three-fourths of all wall and floor spaces are backgrounds on which to show other more important things, including people, who have some right to be exploited even against wall paper. ”

“ For the upholstery material the dry-goods stores offer quite a variety of stuffs from which to choose. The least expensive are burlap, denim, cretonne, and some of the heavy, cotton, printed goods. Other fabrics, richer in appearance and more lasting, are velour, tapestry-cloth, rep, and brocade. Goods of this class will cost from fifty cents to several dollars a yard.
Fig. 9. Fig. 10. Fig. 11. Fig. 12.
To upholster this seat, obtain some curled hair from an [339] old mattress, and spread it over the top board, having first tacked a piece of unbleached muslin along one edge of the seat. ”

“ Few are elaborately furnished. In that climate it is thought better, for the sake of spaciousness and comfort, to forego evidences of wealth in the form of carpets, hangings, and upholstery, which keep out air and retain the heat. ”

“ Flock is made by reducing to a degree of fineness, by machinery, coarse tags of wool, pieces of woollen cloth, old stockings, and other woollen offals of little or no value in any other application. Of all the materials for stuffing upholstery, hair is much the best, and, although it costs more in its original purchase, it is much cheaper in the end. ”

“ Machine-made velvets and velours are made from silk, rayon, cotton, linen, ramie and wool, usually 50 inches wide and in a range of prices and qualities practically unlimited. In some of the cheaper upholstery velours the design is embossed, or depressed by a stamping machine, but in others it is placed in relief by cutting away the pile of the ground. ”

“ A QUEEN ANNE STOOL WHICH ILLUSTRATES A HARD-EDGE SEAT, SEE CHAPTER VI.
[Pg 7]
PART I CHAPTER I
Historical
Upholstering in its broadest sense means the furnishing of a house with draperies, curtains and other hangings; bedding; coverings for couches, chairs and stools; and coverings for carriages and automobiles.
The word upholster, or upholsterer, designates the workman who hangs the draperies and attaches textiles or leather to furniture. ”

“ Upholstery springs may be purchased from 3 to 16 inches in height. They cost 6 cents a pound and weigh from 22 to 100 pounds per gross. On this basis the cost of the large ones approximates 4 cents apiece. The 9-inch springs are most frequently used, and their cost is a trifle over 2 cents apiece. It is better to purchase springs longer than necessary than to obtain them too short, for they may easily be tied down. They should be twice as long as the width of the rails into which they are placed.
Spring twine is needed for tying the springs. ”

“ These two varieties of artistic homespun can by experiment be made to cover a great deal that is beautiful and artistic in manufacture, and yet it leaves untouched the extensive field of plain piece-dyed or yarn-dyed weavings. Yarn-dyed material always has the advantage of the possible use of two colours, one in the warp and one in the filling, but in certain places, as in upholstery, a solid colour produced by piece-dyeing would be preferable. ”

“ The rocker in its entirety is the product of a young woman, a student in the author’s class.
A QUEEN ANNE STOOL.—This stool also has a hard-edge seat but the method followed is a modification of the one just described. In the former the upholstered seat was built over a box or frame, and fitted snugly into the cricket base. In this project the upholstery is fastened permanently to the rails; it becomes an integral part of the structure. The edge is blind stitched. The webbing cannot be tacked directly to the rails ”

“ This is called double stuffing, and work of this kind is termed double stuffed work. Hair is extremely resilient, and used for this purpose adds life to the seat. Moss will answer the purpose. Place a layer of cotton batting over this. Then a piece of muslin is finally tacked over all. Fig. 37 shows the muslin partly tacked, and the two layers of material rolled back. Keep the muslin smooth, especially at the corners, cutting away all surplus material.
FIG. 39
Use a cover of soft material rather than one of leather or substitutes. ”

“ To [Pg 25] a new house, furnished according to the present rage for old-fashioned decoration, our modern sombre apparel is no help. We do not lighten up our rooms a bit now by our dress, except perhaps in summer, but generally we sit, clad in dingiest tints of woollen material, or in very inartistic black silk, amid furniture which was originally designed as a sort of background to much gay and gallant clothing, to flowered sacques and powdered heads, to bright steel buttons and buckles and a thousand points of colour and light. ”

“ In the middle of the fourteenth century the Renaissance style in woodwork was at first more evident in the churches and in the palaces of the nobility in the Italian states. Some of the most magnificent examples of carved woodwork are preserved in the choir-stalls, doorways and panelling of the churches and cathedrals of Italy. The great artists of the day gave their talents to the production of woodwork and furniture in various materials. Wood was chiefly employed in making furniture, usually oak, cypress, ebony, walnut, or chestnut, which last wood is very similar in appearance to oak. ”

“ Before entering upon the last phase of Stuart furniture, and leaving the days of Jacobean oak with its fine carving and handsome appearance—the careful result of selecting the timber and splitting it to show the fine figure of the wood—the attention of the reader should be drawn to the fact that the appearance of the surface of furniture made subsequent to this period begins to approach the results of the modern cabinetmaker with his polishes and spirit varnishes and highly glazed panels and table tops. The lover of old oak abominates varnish. ”

“ He gives us the following description of the furniture he found in "The Flowery Land."
"The moveables of the saloon consist of chairs, stools, and tables; made sometimes of rosewood, ebony, or lacquered work, and sometimes of bamboo only, which is cheap, and, nevertheless, very neat. When the moveables are of wood, the seats of the stools are often of marble or porcelain, which, though hard to sit on, are far from unpleasant in a climate where the summer heats are so excessive. ”

“ Fashion, as we have shown, had a slow and impermanent effect upon village ideals. But the output of these great illustrated volumes, with working drawings, undoubtedly had a wide-reaching influence. The last quarter of the eighteenth century saw an intense outburst of interest in the arts of interior decoration. A great amount of finely designed and beautifully executed furniture belongs to those days, and the echo of the splendid achievements in mahogany and in satinwood is seen in the farmhouse and cottage furniture, which came singularly close upon the heels of fashion. ”

“ Besides designing the woodwork of his furniture he also drew the patterns for the stuffs to cover them; even the little silk cushions on the arms of the chairs had the same care bestowed on them as the backs and seat. When he designed a bed, the counterpane to go on it was also made under his direction or designed by him. A little bag to hang on a lady's arm was not too slight an object to be made beautiful by his artistic hand. ”

“ The parlor furniture of the wealthy is extremely handsome: upholstered in damask, either pure white, or in shades of blue, pink, or crimson, supported by stately frames of gold or silver; with carpet corresponding in style. But the furniture in more general use has wooden frames covered with bright reps; the cushion of each, with its dainty, home-wrought lace cover, tables with the same, all fitting to a nicety make a unique and harmonious effect. Plainer houses have the same unbroken lines of home-made chairs (the sofacita before described) , with the same tables and arrangement. ”

“ The number of excellent workmen and the size and architectural character of so much of the woodwork of the day contributed to give all panelled work, no matter of what description, an architectural type; and furniture shared in this change. Coffers and chests, as well as standards or stall-ends in churches, and bench-ends in large rooms and halls, were designed after the pattern of window tracery. The panel in the above woodcut from a French chest of this date, is a very delicate and beautiful example. ”

“ Where the panels are carved, they are generally bought in that state and set in plain framework by the household joiner. If, however, the frame is carved and the panels plain, they were made to suit the taste and purse of the owner of the mansion. Oak panelling took the place of the arras, tapestry hangings, and crude woodwork of earlier times. Of course it was adopted by the rich and luxurious, for it rendered more air-tight the draughty buildings.
Figure 1. OLD OAK BEDSTEAD.
The oldest furniture was made of oak, more or less carved, whether of Spanish, Italian, Dutch, or English make. ”

“ Ash is harder and will make good solid furniture; and if it will not be found too difficult to work, it will prove a very satisfactory and serviceable wood for chairs, tables, benches, and other pieces of furniture that are subjected to hard usage. In the construction of the various pieces of furniture illustrated, the simple rules of carpentry only are to be followed; and in making all of this furniture only the lap, mortise-and-tenon, and tongue-and-groove joints are employed. ”

“ As we have seen in noticing some of the earlier Jacobean examples already illustrated and described, it was a period marked by increased refinement of design through the abandonment of the more grotesque and often coarse work of Elizabethan carving, and by soundness of construction and thorough workmanship.
Oak furniture made in England during the seventeenth century, is still a credit to the painstaking craftsmen of those days, and even upholstered furniture, like the couches and chairs at Knole, after more than 250 years' service, are fit for use. ”