Kilim Rug Upholstered Furniture

Ever since this project that I did for Domino, I've been obsessed with upholstering furniture with flat woven rugs.

It's surprisingly easy to work with the thicker material (especially if you have this amazing staple gun) and it just looks so unique. Not to mention it is super hard-wearing and stain-resistant!

I'm in the middle of two different rug upholstery projects that I'm excited to share with you soon. I'm hoping to start a third rug upholstery project right away too, since hunching over is getting more and more tricky these days! I just need to find a good (and cheap) kilim to use. I found this curvy headboard for almost nothing at a junk store here locally and I think it would look so great in a pastel, washed out stripey kilim for one of the girls rooms. I'm thinking white linen for the welting.

When I first stumbled on the headboard, I thought of this super-cool ikat version that Amanda Nesbit used in this House Beautiful room makeover:

It's not quite the same as mine - but I like the concept of a really interesting ethic textile on the upholstery paired with pretty, simple bedding.

I'm sort of thinking of more of a stripe at this point for our curvy headboard, sort of like this one:

Costas Picadas

I've got some ideas up my sleeve, but in the meantime, here are some of my favorite inspiration images for kilim-upholstered furniture pieces.

source

Wisteria  //  Safavieh  //  Anthropologie

Barrington Blue

Fab.com  //  Andrew Martin

West Elm

Barrington Blue

Have you ever used a rug to upholster a bench or a chair? I'm thinking I have my work cut out for me with the curves of that headboard. It might end up being a job for my upholsterer, but I'm willing to try first. He gives me a deal when I've stripped off the old fabric for him anyway. :)

(PS I wish Wisteria still made that black and white settee. It was so pretty!!)

DIY Modern Upholstered Platform Bed

I've always liked this modern, low profile upholstered bed frame from Blu Dot, especially in the bright chartreuse color. When it came time to order a new bed for our bedroom I was sick of spending money and wanted to see if I could make a simple bed frame for a lot less.

I first had to find some bright chartreuse linen, but I kept striking out at local fabric stores and I didn't really have time to order something from a trade source. I even tried buying some chartreuse linen on eBay, but the color was way different than the photos when the yardage arrived.

I had just dyed the playroom curtains and figured it could be pretty easy to get a chartreuse color by dying white linen with equal parts lemon yellow and green apple liquid dye. The final color was a little more yellow than I probably was shooting for, but I really like it.

I had the handy man that was over at the house helping us with trim work build me a simple box frame for the headboard and a platform base from mostly scrap wood and a few sheets of plywood.

It only took him about two hours to build both pieces so the project ended up being incredibly inexpensive, even with all that wood.

Here's a photos of the underside so you can see how he structured the very sturdy base.

I was a little nervous to upholster the platform base with the Parsons style legs, but the headboard was a breeze. I used my cheap pneumatic staple gun and flew through the rows of staples!

I think the layer of high loft batting really helps soften the edges of the upholstery.

I started on the two long sides of the bed by tacking on the batting which I cut to fit.

I stapled the fabric on the top of the platform and pulled and stapled around to the underside, but I used fabrictac to glue down the front side edges.

It made for a surprisingly crisp line!

I also wrapped the inside of the leg with fabric using glue.

The only tricky part ended up being the front of the platform. I had to use a roll of upholstery tack strip, which I hadn't used in a while. I had forgotten how awesome this stuff is! It makes for perfectly crisp lines.

I cut the tack strip to size (the length of the whole side of the platform) and then stapled it in place while it was sort of rolled into the fabric. Then I cut batting to size and tacked that into place before folding the fabric around, right side up.

Just look at that pretty line!

I used another pieces of tack strip to make a sharp line on the inside of the leg too and glued that part in place.

Ta-dah! The upholstery tack strip really saved the day and made it pretty simple to get a Parsons style leg. I love the clean, strait lines of our bed!

Not bad for about $200 in labor and materials!

DIY: Nook Book Shelves and Benchtop

Remember how I mentioned that our carpenter had installed a few simple shelves in our nook to hold our TV components? I like the easy bracket system he had come up with, so I duplicated it recently when I wanted to fill out both sides of the nook with shelves.

I pulled off the old shelves, but kept the brackets and cut down 1x2" primed pine boards with a miter saw to fit the back and sides. The side pieces were finished off with a 45-degree angle cut.

The first bracket installation is the most important. Starting with the bottom most shelf, I made one measurement and mark on one of the walls. 

Then the most important part after that first measurement is to use a level to mark all the way around the nook to help you know where to hang the brackets. 

I used an 18-gauge nailer to hang the back bracket first, right on the line, and then the side brackets.

Once you have the first set of brackets perfectly level and installed, the rest of the measurements are easy. Just figure out the distance you want between each shelf, measure up from the bracket and make a little mark. If the first shelf is level, the others will be too.

When all the brackets were installed, I filled all the nail holes with spackle before giving the whole nook a fresh paint of gray paint.

I used laminated pine boards for the actual shelves. Home Depot cut them all to size for me and I stained them with half classic oak and half driftwood stains.

The pine boards are just sitting on top of the brackets, but I could have nailed or glued them in place if I was more worried about it. I'm so happy with how these shelves turned out. I really love the thicker, more chunky look!  

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I don't know why installing shelves has sort of felt too hard-core for me up until now. It's a crazy simple project!

The bench solution was simple too! I didn't want to sew a box cushion, so I had a piece of 1/4" plywood cut to fit the seat area and used a coupon to buy a piece of 2" upholstery foam at Joanns.

The bench is wider than the full width of the fabric. so I had to seam the fabric. The pattern made it pretty easy to line everything up, and a really good pressing fixes even less-than-perfect seams. In the end it's pretty hard to tell where the seam is on the bench. 

I think the key to a really soft and fluffy bench top is a good, high-loft batting layer. I used my trusty handheld staple gun to attach the seamed fabric. I went a little overkill on the stapling so there would be no pulling on the linen. (You can see where I seamed the fabric on the right side of the bench here below - it's not that noticeable!)

I think the bench turned out nice. The pattern is fun and the seat is a comfy, inviting place now!

Have you made any shelving or bench tops yourself? Any tips you'd like to add?