AMAZING Restoration Of 150 Year Old ANTIQUE

I wanted a challenge but I'm already feeling like I've stepped too far out of my comfort zone. The top layer of fabric is missing, there's decades worth of dirt, the horse hair just looks gross and the legs have seen better days. I've also only ever reupholstered one other project before and I didn't exactly do that traditionally either. Now I found this piece on Facebook Marketplace and it cost me £325 and a trip to London. So I have a feeling this is either going to be a cool redemption story or an expensive lesson. I guess we'll see. There's too many of them. I've just taken out a million nails on this chair and it's left the wood in pretty rough condition. But part of me is thinking once I reupholster it, you're never going to see it so it's probably going to be fine. And this reminds me of when I was my dad's apprentice and if I ever ran into a tiny problem, I always used to ask him, will this do? And I think about the hundredth time he got sick of me asking and said, if you ever have to ask, will that do? And the answer's no. So I'm definitely going to do something about these holes otherwise I don't think the new staples are going to hold the fabric very well. So so I'm super happy with the way things are going so far, especially since it's my first time doing any of this. And I've been watching a lot of YouTube to try and learn the process, and in particular this one guy's channel called AT Restoration. And it was at this stage he had these pins that looked really useful, but the only problem is I don't know where to get them from and I don't even know what they're called so I'm going to have to make some. So no so I've just been down to the upholsterers for some advice and the first thing they said was I need to build up a few more layers of wadding because when the top layer of fabric goes on it's all going to compress but the main reason why I was there was for some advice on where to do all the cuts and the folds for the top layer of fabric. Now luckily I've got a layer of calico that's going to go over the full thing and I can use that as a practice run and I just make sure I cut everything slightly bigger because you can always cut a little bit more off but you can never add any more on. What a mammoth task that was. I'll tell you something, it was difficult but really rewarding what we've done but it's something I don't want to do again in a hurry. For our very first traditional upholstery job I'm super happy with it. There might be a couple tiny little imperfections but we learned loads on it and I'm really proud. It's just been a massive endeavor to get to where it is today but I'm super chuffed with it.