MERRY CHRISTMAS

We hope you had a wonderful day with those you care most about.

Linden Virginia

We got away with the family for a few days in the Shenandoah.

Ada 17mos.

Walking with Uncle J.

Uncle D. teaching Ada about bugs.

Learned the ancient sport of cornhole with Aunt J 

(Ada didn't like the distance part of it, but had the beanbag throwing down)

And Ada got to run Aunt C. around in circles.

She was initiated into her first official family hike (a very important event).

(Piedmont Overlook trail in Sky Meadows State Park)

She took a break on skyline drive.

The family rules.

The whole thing was a bit of autumn magic.

Remodeling

Been a drop out for a while, a long while.
I got a few emails the other day- wanting to see how big Ada is, and what's going on. Well, it's long past due for the latest pictures, and here is one of Ada patiently waiting in the Tool Rental store with her mom. She's been doing a lot of this lately.

We're remodeling our kitchen (a big project 10 years in the make-believe-making). It's been three weeks so far, and it's been an adventure juggling a 14 month old, no kitchen, and washing dishes in the bathroom sink, etc.

But it's been a fun adventure so far.

A ton of more pictures coming soon!

Summer, summer, summer

People complain about the heat, but you know- the District in the summer is a wonderful thing.

Cap Hill gardens from April-July are in a class of their own. Walking the dog around here is like an endless feast of gardening greatness.

This picture is from what now seems to be the last of the cool mornings.

That was a few weeks ago. The walks are getting warmer, so we'll see less of this these days, and they involve less of a caravan too. Ada treks to the park with a truck load full of her toys (and Vela has a few too). Seeing as she's about to start walking, we won't need the stroller much anymore. We're going to miss the stroller when it's gone, it's nice having an excuse to cruise around with what is basically a high-performance shopping cart to carry stuff around in.

(Epi. "pacific shockwave" x "pacific flame" grown under glass)

Unsolicited Advice: Reupholstering a Victorian Style Sofa (Part 2)

All hail the amateur.

Part 2: Stripping the Old Sofa  (You can find Part 1 here)

The first step of course is to strip off the old upholstery, and once you start- you will pass the point of no return (so now is the time to put down the tack puller, and put this project off for another year, maybe go read that book you've been putting down too much).

If you're ready to start, here's my advice at this stage of the process:

1. It's going to be dusty, and messy, so if you have space away from where you live- move the sofa there.

2. Schedule enough time to strip the whole piece of furniture (like an afternoon), once you start there will be tacks, and coir, and particles of all sorts all over the place- it's best to get it all cleaned up at once.

3. You may want a dust mask.

4. Get a shop-vac or vacuum ready, and plenty of trash bags, it's amazing how much crap can come out of an old sofa.

5. Take a lot of very detailed pictures of the piece before you start. Be sure to get any details you want to replicate with the new job but may forget. Get pictures of any folds, or placements of fabrics that are not intuitive (for example the bottom fabric may wrap around the arm just so). Also be sure to capture the placement of any ornaments, trims, etc., you want to return.

You may want to try to remove the outer fabric as whole as you can, as having the fabric reasonably intact makes for a rough template when you need to size out the new fabric (don't stress yourself about this step however, it's not hard to estimate the fabric needed- so you should feel free to go all animal on the couch if you want to and just shred the fabric off).

A note on measuring for new fabric: You'll do just fine keeping it really simple. Measure all of the surfaces horizontally and get the length of each surface in inches. Add all those inches up (for example: bottom = 53", upper front = 53", upper back = 54", sum = 160") and then divide by 36. That's how many inches are in a yard, so 160" of surface = 4.44 yards, rounded up to 4 1/2 yards. That should do it, and it should leave you plenty for small details like arm rests, etc.

I find it easiest to just tear off the fabric starting with the back, using a knife. It's a little fun to get in there and just rip off some fabric, so enjoy this part. The hard part is yet to come, once you have all the fabric, and stuffing off, you'll need to pull out all of the tacks/staples/nails that you can.

You'll need to remove layers of material...

Get all of the soft material off.

Regarding the springs and webbing: If after inspecting the webbing you find that it's perfect, I would still recommend you replace it. The webbing has a natural degradation time, if it hasn't failed- it's probably about to. If you really don't want to, and find that all the springs are tied together nicely... your very lucky. You'll need to remove all of the spring ties as well.

Surviving string ties that haven't been removed yet.

Now that you have all of the soft material off, you will probably have strips of fabric "remains" all around the edges, tacked in tightly. 

Take out the bottom in this order: Cut the strings tied to all the springs, and remove it completely, cut the springs off the webbing, and then cut out all the webbing.

Now a tack puller is your friend. These are the steps I have personally found the most pain free:

1. Go around the edges (wherever the tacks are) and pull up the remaining strips of fabric with a pair of needle nose pliers, ideally, a lot of the tacks will come out with it.

2. Go around the piece and pull out everything you can using the same pliers, just go for the easy tacks here- or anything that is sticking out far.

3. Get comfortable, put on something great to listen to, and using that Great Neck Tack Puller, start pulling out every tack you see.

When you're finished the wood frame should look nice and "nearly" tack-free like this.

The hardest part is over. Rejoice.

Part 3 (Coming Next) New Webbing & Tied Springs.

Gardening

Ada gardened for the first time the other day. 

Some parents may be pushing for the walking, but gardening, that's the milestone I'm excited about.

She really got into some digging, trimmed some tiny roots for me, and helped us plant a few tomatoes.

(monarda "raspberry wine" with a tiny friend)

Unsolicited Advice: Reupholstering a Victorian Style Sofa (Part 1)

A lot of people have asked about this project (of course that's mostly because it's been sitting in the middle of our house for months) and since this seems like a project a lot of people I know may want to take on at some point, I thought I would post a small guide.

Part 1: Getting ready


The Type of Sofa Matters

What's usually just called a "Victorian style" sofa is actually not just so.

Generally it doesn't matter at all what you call an old couch (except to decor geeks), but when it comes to reupholstering- it makes a big difference because of the structure of the piece of furniture. Different frames of course come with different difficulties to cover in fabric.

(sofa vs couch: Not to be confused with a davenport, settee, divan, or a more specific piece of ass-supporting device, the more generic of the padded benches are generally just called a "sofa" or "couch," and are interchangeable in the U.S.. For design geeks there is a deep history on the construction of the things, the arms, the legs, the height off the floor, the use, and a hundred other things that make something a sofa. But it seems simply that sofa, with it's origins in Arabic, now means anything that sits more than two people, and although "canapé" may describe this particular sofa, who wants to go around calling it a canapé?)

This sofa, large enough to seat three Victorians, is very crudely carved (in places), and well crafted in others. It's an assembly of rosewood, and the style indicators are a mix of the Eastlake, and Renaissance revival (two of so many Queen Anne fads). So if I were to describe it to an upholsterer I would say it is a medium sized medallion back canapé, with a rosewood light frame, jute and tied-spring seat, with a shield shaped center medallion, and padded curves on either side leading to free arms.

(Many "Victorian" sofas you see out there in the world are actually 20th century reproductions which came about in some revival fad, or were built for traditional decor (people in the 1950's for example who wanted victorian when everyone else was going Saarinen). The mid-century victorian-revival pieces usually have their own unique charm, and give-aways which let you know they are later. Another great percentage of "victorian" sofas are replicas made in Malaysia or other exotic locales and sold as decor-pieces at flea markets and such (some of these are made out of some amazing tropical woods). But just as when you see someone who's had a little too much work done, it's usually rude to point these differences out unless the owner asks.)

Starting State

Having carried it's share of people, this couch was exhausted. Considering it's probably been a hot seat at 1,000 parties over it's lifetime with various owners we were impressed that it held up as long as it did. Our big chessie puppy also made it her regular spot for almost a year, that's when the squeaking and sagging got worse, and the springs finally fell out of the bottom.

This era of couch (or style for accurate reproductions) has a frame strung with jute webbing, and on that webbing sits the springs (which are sewn into the webbing). The particular way that the jute is woven under the frame, and the springs are attached to it, and then strung together, make for a very strong contraption when done right (usually called the "8-way hand-tied spring," which means the springs are tied together by hand, with at least 8 connections per spring). However, if a point fails, say one spring comes loose, or a strand of webbing rips, then the whole thing comes apart pretty quickly. It's strength is only present as a unit, if one part fails, it becomes very weak (I know there's a metaphor in there, but there's no use for one).

The stuff under the fabric is called the foundation-materials. This sofa had probably lost it's original foundation-materials, as I believe it has been recovered once before (I am guessing from some duplicate tack holes in the frame, and mix of some material), but there was still a lot of old material in there which had been layered over the years with various hack fixes, including a flour sack from the 1920's.


What You'll Need


Here is a list of supplies and some comments based on experience.

First off- let's eliminate foam from this project. A sofa like this could be reupholstered using foam, you could put foam on top of the webbing and then use the fabric to pull it into nice round shapes, but that would feel totally different. It would feel like a foam couch.

An old couch has a certain pre-foam feeling to it, and to some this feeling is just right. That is what we want here. So this supply list is not for a foam job (and also foam is pretty damn expensive anyway, it is not a cheaper approach, just a newer one).

Supplies

• Some Webbing, which is another way of saying the straps that are attached to the frame to hold the soft parts in place. Unless your webbing is perfect (and it probably won't be after you pull all the fabric off) you'll want to replace it. The material sold most often is a classic style jute, and a newer plastic (made by companies like Pirelli). Webbing is also available in polyester and nylon (a lot like the straps on old 1980's era lawn chairs). The classic jute is a lot cheaper than the stronger plastic webbing, but more expensive than the polyester. Seeing as the jute should last another 50-100 years if done right, I think it's a good choice. It also has a traditional look and feel.

• Some Spring Tying Twine, which is the strong line that holds the springs together. Again, there is a traditional natural fiber twine sold at fabric stores (which I used), but it costs a bit more than just getting a spool of strong nylon line from a hardware store.

• You'll need some Tufting Twine and a big Needle: to attach the springs to the webbing, or for tufting, I figure you could also use any very strong thread, or thin nylon string, but tufting twine is easy to get at most fabric stores.

• A Webbing Stretcher, which cost anywhere from $30 to $90 for a tool you may not use that often. They are beautiful things, and nice to have around, but I chose to fashion a stretcher-like-device out of a 2X4 and some nails. It's basically a simple tool that has sharp points on one surface to grab the end of the webbing, and then it acts as a lever which presses against the frame to pull the webbing tight so you can attach it under tension.

• A damn good Tack Puller is absolutely essential to your sanity. You may have to pull out what seems like ten thousand tacks, so having a good tool here makes all the difference. I tried everything from precision needle nose plyers, to the cheap tack puller from the local fabric store. The best tool I found for the job is the Great Neck tack puller.

• You may possibly need a roll or two of Burlap, and you will definitely need an Underlayer Fabric to cover any springs before you add the padding. A big fabric store will sell specific types of material for underlayers in upholstery, but I found it to cost more per yard than actual upholstery fabric laying on the remnant table. So I choose to just use another upholstery fabric for the underlayer, nothing fancy, just a simple white upholstery fabric from the scrap table that is usually a few dollars cheaper per yard than other options.

• New finishing Upholstery Fabric, obviously.

• The Padding, which can be Coir, horsehair, Cotton, wool, foam, down, and I suppose anything soft for that matter. Modern sofas use foam, and foam is an easy way to go. You'll get much better results however with the traditional style using coir to build up the padding from the springs, and then cotton or wool (or down) to build out the actual cushions. I went with Coir and Cotton, and it took one large bag of cotton, and two bags of coir to do this sofa.

• Staples or tacks, and the device for attaching them like a Staple Gun or Upholstery Hammer. I should say at least a manual staple gun and upholstery hammer, but really what you want is a nice pneumatic brad nailer. After taking this particular sofa apart I decided to use modern staples throughout. And since my small compressor and brad gun was stolen last year when I left them in the backyard (ah District life), I  borrowed one from a friend who always has the best tools. 

The Cost

Now I am sure you have your own sources, and can find much better deals than I can, but just in case it helps to give you an idea of what you are getting into, the overall cost for me was around $250. That was a lot less than I expected. We found the fabrics we wanted on remnant tables which saved quite a bit (I found that upholstery fabrics we wanted ranged from $75-$8 per yard, which was a huge range, we ended up finding exactly what we wanted for $8 a yard). The cost for us was pretty well spread out over the: webbing, padding, and of course final fabric.

The Time

No bullshit here- this took me forever, I'd say 16 hours or so (spread out over a long time of course). If you really put the effort in, it may go quickly, but it took a lot more labor than I initially guessed. A tremendous amount of time was spent carefully pulling out all of the old tacks and cleaning the frame. The second most consuming task was tacking on the webbing tightly, and sewing all the springs back in. Once the springs were tied, the cushioning and actual upholstering came together relatively quickly (in about an hour). Each step took a few hours for me. Plan on the sofa being out-of-commission for a while.

Is It Worth It?

I would say that unless you are sentimentally attached to the piece (which we are) probably not.

Of course if the piece is of some significance, has a valuable frame, or is historic, then of course it's worth it. Otherwise I'm not sure if I'd put the time in again. However, with that being said, it's great fun to dissect an old piece of furniture, and to really see how it was built (most are unique I find). It's a satisfying job if you love the piece, taking off the old filthy fabric, and covering it with a fresh layer. Not to mention it feels pretty damn good to sit on that finished sofa since you've essentially built it back up yourself.

There is also a massive benefit to custom upholstery for the obvious reasons, it's likely you love the piece, but need a different fabric for the room. You can customize the seating feel to your own taste (some pieces I want to sink into, others I want support from, etc.).

Part 2 (Coming Next) Removing the old Upholstery

Longwood

A day at the gardens.

Old Pictures / First Aquarium.

One of my favorite pictures (and days) ever was of Ada visiting an aqaurium for the first time. She was mesmerized (this was at the Amazon at the National Zoo).

This was way back in March, she was 10 months old.

And she had a chance to do some exploring with her grandfather.

Independence

These are the days.

11 months old means there is a

new routine around here, and a new regime.

Ada's mornings go a lot like this: First, she waits for us to get out the door.

As soon as we can catch up, she's off.

She off to visit and give her hellos around the neighborhood.

She's off to hang out at Eastern Market with her baby friends.

She spends some time contemplating her next mode of transportation.

And then she needs a refueling.

Happy

And then there's this one.

Horse Party

A member of the family had a big birthday last week, Isabel (Izzy) the horse turned 1 year old.
As a foal she was orphaned, since the dam did not take her in, so our amazing niece has hand reared her since birth. After months of round-the-clock bottle feedings, and after a ridiculous amount of commitment and work, this strong beautiful young horse is making us all very proud of our niece.

Izzy is a well loved little filly if there ever was one.

My sister and her family threw a great party for Izzy's first birthday.

Ada spent the afternoon at their beautiful little farm.

She had a chance to spend some time with the chickens now that she is a little older, 

and it turns out Little Ada loves the chickens.

Here is Ada hanging out with these beautiful birds that are about as big as she is.

Here she is taking a wagon ride with her Auntie.

Ada had the best time- not only did she get to follow her cool older cousins around (the coolest two girls in the world to her), but she was pointing, and staring, and playing, and walking (with help), all day long. Any time she didn't spend looking at animals, she spent pointing at things she would like to toddle around and look at more closely.

Congratulations Izzy and Ty.

La Primavera Esplosivo

It's blossom-mania in the District (and a lot of the world I suppose). It's just the end of the cherries and deciduous magnolias here, and just the beginning for everything else.

People have lost their pollen addled minds. It seems like there is more drama on the  U.S. E.C. than usual this spring, with the extra early heat, the excitement in the air, and flowers over every inch of space, it's a big full volume spring. But most importantly around here, Ada is finally able to get out of the winter gear and walk around unencumbered.

Here are a few pictures of her with some of her family: sleeping with her Grandma (look how big that baby is now!), her cousin Ty (super cake excitement face!), and her Aunt J (nice tiny stuffed bear you have there aunt J). She's such a grown up little 10 month old that it's ridiculous. She thinks she's already two. She's also one of the few people who can pull off a poncho so well.

For the 100th Anniversary of our Cherry Blossoms ("the" cherry blossoms) the city/festival created these decoration kits. I am taken with any municipal effort to make a big deal about flowers blooming, and the thought of an "official" festival home decorating kit (including light bulbs and big yard signs) amused me all month. Our neighbors got into the spirit, so there's lots of pink around here.

We had our annual overage of blossom celebration, including our annual day on the basin fueled by sun and saké. Most of the celebrating went by so quickly, and was so much fun, that I never took pictures of it. It's a good thing there are enough pictures of flowers in the world, so I prefer to just enjoy them with the cameras stashed away.

I like this photo because it reminds me that this is one of the few places where trees are celebrities, well it's a place where trees and nerds are celebrities anyway. Here is Ada, and behind her the blossom paparazzi are out in full force. By the tens of thousands, 24/7, they strive to capture it. In March every online photo sharing site on earth must get deluged from DC with a few petabytes of pink and white puffs- the thought of it warms my heart.

This time of year in the District we are all a little kawaii.