Treasures of Upholstery Ep. 2: 1800's Victorian Sofa

[Music] [Music] hello so another another job came in another antique sofa from the late 19th century and we're about to tear it apart and this is would be another episode of treasures treasures of the upholstery world you know the last thing we did we found a very interesting couple of things and the thing that interests me and excites me about this piece of furniture it has it looks like the original fabric on it so perhaps it has some original artifacts inside and it would be really interested to take this apart to see what might be inside here so this was probably in a very expensive home around the turn of the century and the front paola probably some fine gentleman with some fine change in their pockets perhaps or some other out of facts so let's let's get going oftentimes this isn't one piece of furniture this this is put on in two panels so I suspect and I won't know until I try with the chisel and you have to be very careful when you do this that this is put on with Brad's and from this side so let's just see if I'm right that's just going to need yeah this is going to be a little tough I'm gonna stop right there because I suspect that they might have put it on another way so if you're using the chisel and sometimes they put them on with dolls on the front - or the Brad's like I said and you feel real resistance stop and take another approach take you know what we're doing is surgically trying to take this apart we're not we're not being aggressive at all so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna come over to this side and I'm gonna see if they've screwed it in from the back so that means that you have to take the AMA Pro caja they have if you get in there and see that there's some screws holding the panel on so now how did I know that because when I was when I was trying to pry that up I'm Patrick you should focus down here because what we did was we just we just undid some of this and we're seeing some some type of out of fact if you want to call a candy wrapper or an artifact but for some people a candy wrapper could mean something you know I don't know what this is this looks like trash so we might as well pull pull that off right well we're gonna still focus on the panel get in the panel off so I'm gonna go get a screwdriver we've taken two screws out so far that a hole in that front panel on now we're gonna take out make sure you save all the screws by the way it's one more screw in here so I think it's the main screw it's in the middle of the panel so it's like that's gonna come off sometimes these panels have a signature on them on the backside or a date which would be kind of cool that will be interesting we'll slowly flip that over and take a look let's take a look I don't see anything so you see remnants of some glue they they glued and then you see this piece here that was a remnant of a brad coming through the front side see what they drove the brad through hand probably finished it but there's the front there's the left panel here's a brad that you can see so they did a combination of screws and Brad's so this Brad's coming through the that Brad's coming through the front and they filled it in after they put the bread and they filled it in so it's all you get to see the stock here Patrick you have a picture there see the stocks very old you know so we're talking we're talking about like that Victorian chair that you've we have done what we're doing now that you will seen soon see this is about the same era I'd say 1860 is interesting so so let's put this up side the other one will be just like this my approach is to take these panels these these decorative panels off fun panels off first so this should be on the same way as the other one there were three screws and some Brad's as one there's another one up in this in the other top I'm all the the other at the right went off and we found a number four one nine now does that mean this was the 419 one produced no it could be a pot number for this piece but something that they did that they didn't do on the other sides they drove a big nail through here actually looks like a hand forged nail - that's what I'm trying to get a close-up of that Patrick do you see a seam anywhere on that that's an indication of the machine age when you see the seams of machine made but this machine age this looks like a hand forged nail so what has to happen here let's just try and hold our breath this has to come back out now if I don't if I have a hard time I might just cut it right down here and you know let's just look it over here you know what I think I am gonna cut this I'm gonna start all over again because of ice if I'd back that out I'm gonna splint them I would hair so I'm trying to protect as much of the original as I can so I'm gonna do is take my trusty side cutters and I'm gonna cut this now when you do this make sure there's nobody around I'm gonna hold it away from the cam and away from the cameraman I'm gonna cut that and that just that nail just flew off that way so that's all I'm gonna do okay I'm gonna try to get it oh I can't get it much closer than that so that's good okay so let's put these aside for now then we're gonna go to the back I'm gonna go after the decorative pieces on the back and sometimes they doweled on sometimes they're screwed on in the case of the front pieces they were they weren't dowel they were screwed and breaded on from the front so you know you're always going to be confronted with different different ways things people do things so I have no idea until I start I'm gonna take the outside back off and take a look inside here see I just want to show you something is a very tradition in upholstery these are called gift ex-gi MP tacks and they're they're used to close up the outside very simple you know method but it's very traditional in the upholstery world so I've got some age to start on this I mean buy stock is with and I see something that's wide a board that's wide like this that's an indication of age I'll call you antique dealers are now we're gonna get into at the bottom here where possibly Jesse James or somebody sitting on this sofa while Wes might have dropped some information about his life in a letter to his girlfriend no we can speculate have fun doing that it's almost like a time capsule really when you have something this whole this is interesting so we got some modern things right away I see some M&Ms that's pretty modern but here's a thank you no let's just take a look at this New England confectionery company Cambridge Massachusetts thank you for choosing the candy covered eccentric eccentric cetera that's got some interest but that's modern we got here now we haven't opened up the main money pit here on this love candy okay we're just gonna continue this process and take that right off now that I've removed the outside back upon inspection I had a better understanding of how this is put together okay so this debt could the decorative pot that you see here is part of the main board okay and these and these pieces the three pieces here are panels and they're gonna come out separately one at a time after I unscrew them but the first thing I might do is I might remove the whole thing for us so I'm trying to determine that right now you see how loose it is we'll tighten it up to part of that as part of the job but let's just remove a little bit more than fabric on the outside back and wow you can see the construction here so we're gonna do is start unscrewing knees I guess to see how easy this is going to come off and one piece hopefully that's a nail see they've used anything they can to get this tight so that comes out guitar pick an old guitar pick Patrick so this is a separate piece the back is a separate piece with three separate panels which will be which will be taken off one at a time later on so now I want you to come to the front but once you go around to the front I'll stay in the back so this for all you beginners out there couldn't look a little bit more familiar you can get your head wrapped around what with what we have left which is the attached seat and attach downs so we have an attached seat attached to the inside on and outside arms that are put on after all the panels of the front put on and the back is in place so we always start with the seat inside ABS outside arms inside back outside back in that order so we didn't find any treasures but you know that's okay the treasure is the piece itself we did find some candy New England confectionery company a label which was kind of interesting we found a number on the front but I'd say lackluster but I hate to use that word but hey you know and maybe on the next piece we're getting lucky so we'll see you next time [Music] [Music]

Channel: Broadway Upholstery School

Views: 1,817

Rating: 4.8400002 out of 5

Keywords: upholstery, howto, DIY

Id: OyD58yU1mKs

Length: 11min 52sec (712 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 27 2019