On upholstering a chest-lid

I use a tiny little viking chest as my loom seat. I once made it to use it in a reenactor context, but since then my standards on authenticity have increased and built a better one. Don't get my wrong, it's a perfectly good chest, however for reenactment purposes it's big brother is preferred. Which is good, because I built the chest several years ago but I never gave it a chest. Instead, when I needed it to be a chest and a seat, I would ensure it was stuffed so full that your bum didn't slip into it uncomfortably.

Using it as a loom seat, I put a board on top, because it's no longer filled with stuff. However, as I wanted to try my hand on upholstery and I didn't feel bad for it because I had built it myself (I have this odd habit of undervalueing things I made myself, because, well, I made them). So I decided this would be my test-case before I start taking apart our chairs that urgently need reupholstering.

First I made the board the basis of my upholstered lid by drilling in and setting dowels such that it no longer can slip around. Also, I sawed it to the right size - just perfectly covering the top of the chest.

Next, I glued on upholstery foam with wood glue. I don't think professionals use wood glue. But it made the foam stick down onto the wood. Regretably I also used the wood glue to glue two segments of foam to each other... I would not do that again, it left a hard ridge. Then, I trimmed the upholstery foam so it has rounded edges.

The upholstery foam was from a normal hardware store and it was the thickest they, had, about 4cm. Again, in retrospect I would choose thinner.

To keep the foam in place I used some scrap cotton fabric and gently stretched it over the foam, stapling it in place on the bottom of the lid.

I realized then that I wanted some batting, because the unevenly cut edges of the foam were showing through quite clearly and also because the foam was quite hard. So what does a person do who does not want to go to the hardware store again for fear of spending far too much money? Well, with all my wool-based activities I do have a bunch of scrap material, partly carded as batts, a good chunk of it from this project. So I padded the top and then stretched a second layer of scrap cotton over that - this time pulling it down tight. and again tacking it down all round - this time to the sides of the board.

Finally, I used Ikea canvas to cover the entire thing in three stages: first staple down little edges to the sides of the dowels - these ensure that the slits needed for the dowels in the bottom cover only show more canvas. Second, I used a flat panel with slits for the dowels, stapling it to the sides of the board. Third, I used selfmade piping and sewed a cover following the curve of the top. This cover I nailed down, using upholstery nails. 

That's it, all done!

Formalities:

• Materials: canvas, piping, thread, upholstery nails, scrap cotton, scrap wool batting, upholstery foam, staples, board, dowels, wood glue
• Tools: drill, staple gun, knife/scissors, sewing machine, hammer
• Time: sawing and doweling: about an hour
             foam upholstery: about an hour
             batting upholstery: about an hour
             final covering: about 2.5 hrs
  total time: about 5.5 hrs, however progressed in stages. With routine this could be faster.