The King of Random

Today I received some shocking news that made me very sad: Grant Thompson, known—probably around the world—as The King of Random, died in a paragliding accident.

My kids...well, my whole family enjoyed his YouTube channel The King of Random, where he did everything from blowing things up to making LEGO gummies. But, before all that, Grant was our friend. Truthfully, Grant was probably everyone's friend; he was just a really nice guy.

Grant and his wife Janae lived in our ward in West Valley City for a few years. He was the Elder's Quorum president for a while. We learned how he got into his career as a commercial pilot, and about his first date with his wife. We had had dinner together, visiting way too late into the night in each others' homes quite a few times. We sang together. We went to their first son's first birthday party.

The Thompsons moved out of our ward before he started his YouTube channel, but we've followed him ever since he started it. The last time we saw them in our home was in early fall of 2013; by then they had two little boys and one on the way. Since then we've lost touch, but I am sad to hear of his death, and so sad for his family.

To Rejuvenate a Love Seat

OR 

      Reupholstery, Part 3

Well, on Friday night, one week after we started taking it apart, it was time to reupholster this love seat. So I turned on my 80's playlist, and got started.

Yes, you are seeing red. That is some fleece that we added
to help soften the wooden corners before we folded the
foam back over the frame.

The bottom of the couch did not have any fabric between the springs and the foam. I don't know why not; the back of the couch did. (We will see if this is standard, or if it was a mistake, when we do the next couch.) So the springs were cutting into the foam a bit. There were also spots where the foam folded over sharp corners and so tore a little bit. Bruce had sanded the sharp edges off of all the corners when he worked on the rest of the frame so, hopefully, that will ease some stress on the foam. He also stretched the denim over the seat springs.

A girl and her glue gun.

The first thing I did on this day was a little bit of foam-repair, using hot glue. (A trick I learned from puppet-making.) And then it was time to staple the foam back in place.

If I could see dents where the foam had been stapled before,
then I stapled it there (although not in the same ...staple holes/indentations). Otherwise... Nope.

Well, the deck piece was the last one off, so it was the first one to go back on.

Ah, look at that beautiful deck! ;-)

Lindsey tests it out.
(If you look, you can also see me—or my shadow—in this pic.)

After the deck, the shoulders, the back, the arms, etc.. I spent four or five hours stapling pieces in place on the first evening. Well, with dinner happening some time in the middle of it all.

Heh! Look at Ryan and me.    :-D

Ryan helped me with the first set of back cushions. They are stitched in-between two pieces of black fabric (which I was able to re-use). The open side of each cushion is stitched between the two black, back-pieces which then stretch over the back of the frame. (The cushions themselves have zippers on the underside, which is where/how the stuffing goes in. They required more padding—which I already had in the house.)

We put this back piece on with the seat cushions in place so there wouldn't be a gap between the two sets of cushions. Then I moved the seat cushions and covered the arms up, but my photographer apparently had had enough fun at this point.

I finished the last of the upholstering in the morning (the bottom-side panels, and padded out the upper back cushions and stapled them in place), in about three hours.Well, finished except for the back because I'm waiting for the tack strips I ordered from Amazon, and the webbing on the bottom isn't done because it goes on very last.

Doing the upholstery was a learning process. The big pieces, like the deck, were pretty obvious; you just start in the center and staple, and stretch, and staple toward the ends 'til it's all in place. But whenever I had two of anything to do (shoulder pieces, arms, etc.) the first side took me an hour or so to figure out, and then the second one only took about fifteen or twenty minutes. Which means the next couch should be done amazingly fast! Right?

All told, it probably took us about twenty-five hours to do the whole thing. Well, add another four to six hours if you count the time Bruce worked on the frame at the same time I was cutting out fabric. Twenty-five to thirty hours? I do think we can probably do the big couch in the same amount of—or maybe even a little less—time.

And now for the big reveal...

The Arm:

                 before                     and                        after

Side view:

Lookin' good!     :-)

As a side note, when I came up with the name for today's post I thought, Wouldn't it be nice to rejuvenate myself as quickly and easily as I did this couch?

Well...actually, no.

 I am getting wrinkly and a little saggy in places (although I don't need extra padding anywhere...well, maybe a couple of places...). But I don't think I want to have all my skin methodically pulled off, limb by limb, and then everything else stripped off, all the way down to my bones, only to be replaced in a week's time, stretching my skin (or a different skin––Ew!) back over it all. I think I will rejuvenate myself the old-fashioned way.

Anyway, here's the entire thing...

Before:

And after:

The big couch is next, then the chair, and then the ottoman. And then it will be like I got all new living room furniture! Yay!

The Great Reupholstering, part 2

All right. Yesterday we had gotten to the point where we'd taken all of the fabric off of the couch, and I'd undone any sewing on said pieces so I could use them as patterns. Let's go on, shall we?

When all the pieces were removed, labeled, and unpicked, I rolled my new fabric out on the great room floor, and then used the old pieces as patterns.

Bruce told me I should measure the seat cushions and make new patterns, but I said, "Bah! I don't need to do that!" He was right; the seat-cushion covers don't fit tight enough, and when you sit down you leave wrinkly bum-prints. :-/ If I have enough fabric left after we do the other couch I will redo the seat cushions.

I am using a sliver of soap to trace around the old upholstery pieces; I left just a little extra space around each one. There's the famous deck piece, all cut out. And the piece labeled "arm" is a mistake. I blame Bruce. (It is actually a shoulder piece.) I was only labeling the pieces from one side of the couch, but Bruce had tossed these pieces that he removed onto my pile. So I labeled my pieces "shoulder" and his pieces "arm". It wasn't until after I'd cut them out that I realized this made no sense at all. But I can use those pieces for the next couch, so no harm done.

It took me about five or six hours to lay out the "pattern pieces" and cut them all out—labeling the new pieces as I went so I'd know what went where. I also pinned the deck pieces together, the pellon-type stuff to the appropriate pieces, and the shoulder pieces together at this time. Maybe a six-hour day, all told.

Here is the state of my great room after the cutting project. And, in fact, until I was completely finished with the couch a week later.
For shame!

(By the way I was not going to buy any more new stuff than the fabric I'd already gotten. Fortunately, even though these couches are pretty old, the foam was in decent shape—needed a little hot-gluing in a few places, but still decent. The deck and pellon fabrics were in very good condition too, so I was able to set them aside to reuse.)

While I cut and labeled the pieces, Bruce worked on the frame—specifically the springs and the arms.

The springs are attached to the couch with some little brackets that are, basically, a piece of metal that curves around the spring. This bracket has little (little) prongs that hammer into the frame of the couch. The brackets had broken—not where they bend (as you'd expect) but behind the bent part. So the springs would still fit into the brackets and stay in place, but the brackets themselves would not stay in place. However, we noticed that these brackets also had holes in them that looked just right for wood screws...
Easy fix, and no extra purchases necessary. Hooray! (Bruce also reinforced all of the non-broken brackets with wood screws.)

When we inherited these couches they had this golden-oak-and-brass-looking trim that went down the shoulders and arms, and across the bottom front. Very 80s—or maybe 90s-looking. And the very first thing I did was remove all of that and get rid of it. Then, within weeks, someone sat on the arms (or maybe stood on them, or punched them, or something) and they got dented. Bruce has said, and I agree, that the arms of a couch should be sturdy enough for people to sit on them (and, in fact, I am as likely to stand on them as anyone, if I need to reach something...).

I don't know if you can actually read the lettering that's on the picture. But it says that the hot pink line there follows the curve where the fabric sunk into the broken arm of the couch.

When we got down to the frame, we saw that the arms were built like this:

Actually the arm of the couch also had two small blocks running across the empty space, so it was built just like the shoulder. Both the shoulder and the arm were covered over with some chip board—about double the thickness of poster board—and it had holes punched through it in many places. (You can also see here that Bruce stretched a piece of denim over the bottom springs to—hopefully—protect the foam that will sit back on top of them.)

Bruce cut out some pieces of wood and screwed them in, and then tested the arm by putting as much weight on it as he could (although he is too tall to stand on the arms of the couch). It was much, much better.

Here's the board that Bruce put into the arm which makes it sturdy enough to sit—and maybe even to stand—on. He also put a couple more blocks into the top of the shoulder piece where, if you were standing next to the couch, you might lean on it. Yay!

Then Bruce suddenly had a lot of work (paying work) to do, and I went out of town with the girls. So a week passed before I got back to the couch.

First I had to sew all the fabric pieces together. (With a heavy needle, some upholstery thread, and a walking-foot my little home machine had no trouble with this.) I spent two days on the sewing—six or seven hours? At this point Bruce was still really busy with work, so I just decided to tackle the reupholstering myself.

But, alas! It's getting later and later (10:00!), and I haven't even had breakfast yet. And I have real work to do around here. So I will finish this story tomorrow.

I just think I can do whatever I want to do

And I've been wanting to reupholster my couches.

In fact, you may remember that a few months ago I put a bunch of fabric sample pictures up to get help in deciding which fabrics to use. (In a strange twist of fate, I wasn't able to use either of the combinations I blogged about...not enough fabric in stock. But I did get pretty close, and I did get the elephant fabric that I love.)

Part of the reason for my reupholstering fixation was that the cushion were springing leaks, and batting was showing through.That, and some springs were popping out of the backs of the couches and tearing up the fabric.

The blue arrow points from the bottom to the top of the couch.
The green arrows point to two of the springs that popped out; there's another one hiding underneath the fabric. You can't
see it in this picture (and this was a surprise for us), but
the center board is not attached at the bottom; it's just dangling inside the couch. That's not good!

A couple of weeks ago it was time: Bruce and I finally started to tear apart the love seat. Well, that sounds more violent than it really was. Actually we carefully looked at each piece of fabric on the couch to see which one was on top of everything else, and then we carefully pried it off using an upholstery staple remover (which looks like  a two-pronged screwdriver), and I carefully marked the piece with an arrow pointing up and numbered it "1". ("Pointing up" is to the ceiling or to the back of the couch, depending on the piece.) Then we did the next piece (labeling it "2", etc.). I figured we were smart enough to put the pieces back on in reverse order. And we were! :-)

We took pictures like this at every step, so we'd have
something to refer to when we rebuilt—which piece went where,
how they were attached, etc. . In the end, I just remembered
without the pics anyway.

The blue dot marks the bottom of the couch frame.
The green dot is on the side of the deck. The deck is where the cushions sit, but it is attached to the bottom-front piece, and it wraps around the sides a little. The arrows are on the bottom-side piece, which overlaps the sides of the deck.

The green arrow points to a strip of chip-board
(like book-board; it's about 1/16-inch or maybe 3/32-inch  thick). This is stapled on top of the wrong side of the fabric to make a straight edge for the fabric to crease over. The pink arrow points to a tack-strip, which folds over and is hammered into the frame; this way you won't see any nails or staples on the outside of the couch.

Here you see the side piece all removed, and the foam exposed. The foam is in pretty good condition. The gray stuff is pellon that is attached to another piece. You can also see the staple remover.

And here I am, removing the fabric from the arm of the couch.

As we took off each piece of fabric I paid attention to how they were put on in the first place: some pieces were just stapled in place, some had tack strips, some had extra pieces of pellon-type stuff sewed onto them...  All of this fabric removal process took about... three to five hours, I'd guess.

the well-labeled bottom-side piece.

some messed up cushions

in progress (you can see those nasty springs again)

And you are looking at the bottom of a fully-naked couch. Shocking!
You can see that there is no fabric between the springs and the foam. That doesn't see right to me.

We found junk in the couch, but no money. :-(

A few bobby-pins, some pencils, a pen, screws, my long-lost scissors!, an earring, and a crochet hook. The crochet hook is a mystery since none of us crochets. We must have inherited it with the couch.

The next step was for me to pick out some stitching. The bottom part (underneath the seat cushions) is called the deck, and it is made of some black fabric that goes directly under the cushions, and is sewn to some of the fashion fabric. I had to take those two bits apart. There were a couple of other pieces that were sewn to ugly pellon stuff, so they had to come apart too, and the shoulders of the couch were actually three pieces sewn together; those also had to come apart, and I had to take apart the back and seat cushions.  (Is there a word that means "to take apart"? The online thesaurus suggests "annihilate". Hm.)

So, now the couch is naked, pieces that were sewn are taken apart, and everything is labeled.

Next steps tomorrow...

Just for the Fun of it

For weeks, maybe even months, Kaylie, Rachel, and their friend Ruth Ann have been planning a pleasure trip to Salt Lake. The idea was to shop, play, shop some more, and just have some fun.

As the day got closer, Kaylie was telling me their plans, which included taking a bus from Vernal to Salt Lake—and which would cost each of them $30 each way. And, on top of that, they would have to take city buses everywhere they wanted to go. So I told Kaylie that if they paid for the gas in the car, and fed me, I would drive them to town, and be their chauffeur while they were there.

Last Tuesday was the day; we got up early-ish, and were headed out to Salt Lake by 8:30 a.m.

One of the first things the girls wanted to do was shop at Deseret Industries (a thrift store). So we went to Salt Lake via Provo—which is an hour south of Salt Lake, but it's quicker to get there from Vernal. And, more importantly, Provo has the biggest D.I. I've ever been to; they would have a lot more stuff to peruse. When we drove up to the store at 11:30 Ruth Ann said, "This is ten times bigger than the one in Vernal!" That's about right.

While the girls started on their clothes-shopping adventure, I called my sister, Melanie, to see if she could join us on Wednesday afternoon. Then I watched—and helped—them choose clothes to try on.

This is the only picture they took at the D.I.—which is too bad because they tried on (and bought) a lot of cute things there, and they were having a lot of fun.

After the clothes-shopping, they went and looked at shoes. I have to admit, I was a little jealous of the shoe-shopping; I have a thing for shoes. (I did try some on, but none of the cute ones fit my wide feet.) They each got a pair of shoes, and three or four shirts each, and a couple pairs of pants, all for a whopping total of $50 between the three of them. Not bad!

We left the D.I. around 2:30 and it was definitely time for lunch. But we didn't know where to go in Provo, and I didn't want to drive around searching, so we just headed up to Salt Lake. Around 3:30-ish we had some food, and then we headed to Day Murray Music, our favorite music store. Ruth Ann had never been there, and it was like a candy shop for her; Kaylie almost had to drag her away from it. Then we went to Orson Gygi's. We looked around at all their stuff, and we looked at their model kitchens. And I decided I definitely want to do two colors of cabinets in my kitchen. Kind of like this:

I have wanted to paint my kitchen cabinets white because the kitchen gets no natural light—it's way too dark for a kitchen.
But the tile is white-ish, and the counter tops are cream-colored,
and white cabinets would make the whole room too, too white.
I'd been thinking of doing a dark color on the bottom cabinets
and white above, but the men in the house disapproved
(or at least they couldn't visualize it).

Now, my kitchen isn't nearly this fancy (I mean, really:
white Formica counter tops... although that is about same floor color), but I think I could do this kind of thing. Although I wouldn't go with solid black; I'd do dark, dark blue, or a softer black
that has a blue or brown tint.

Back to the girls...

After Gygi's we went to Grandpa North's house, where we would be staying for the duration of the trip. I guess we got there around 6:00, and then we still had to go to the grocery store and get stuff for dinner. So we ate around 7:30 or 8:00, and after that the girls started a movie. I, on the other hand, was asleep before 10:00. (Am I getting old?)

On Wednesday morning we had a leisurely breakfast, cleaned up, and started on the day's adventures. First stop was to Brad and Becky's house to admire their new (one week old) baby, Esther.

from left to right: Rosie (the dog), Ruth Ann, Rachel, me—with Esther, Kaylie, Scott, and Lizzy—who is sitting on the floor,
playing a video game. None of us managed to get a picture
of Brad and Becky. Lame.

I think only Ruth Ann and I held the baby.
Holding Esther made Ruth Ann's day; she loves babies.

From Brad's house we went to Jordan Landing so the girls could do some more shopping. Kaylie got a few things she'll need when she goes to school, but mostly it was clothes-shopping again.

Rachel surprised me—and maybe herself, too—by liking the black sheath dress with the art-deco sequins down the front. But her favorite (and mine) is the one with the full skirt.

Unfortunately we didn't get a picture of Ruth Ann in the dress that she absolutely loved (and bought). But this one is cute, too.

Kaylie fell in love with the pink dress, but it was a little too snug, and the next size they had was way too big. Darn!

The girls shopped until I  was ready to drop. Then at 2:00 we headed to Aunt Marian's house to have a dip in her pool. Melanie met us there (yay!). So Marian, Melanie and I all chatted while the girls went into the pool-house to get into their swimsuits and get all sunscreened; this gave us over an hour to talk. What on earth took those girls so long?!. Not that I minded an hour to visit, but...wow! Then Melanie and I got into our suits and sunscreen, and got into the pool.

Melanie and I spent most of our time hanging out in the cool water and chatting while the girls played, although we did participate in a pool noodle race with the girls. Melanie won. Sadly, we don't have any pictures of the private swim party.

The girls and I had thought to go back to Jordan Landing and visit the Barnes and Noble store, but it was time for us to head back to Grandpa's house. He took us to a really nice buffet for dinner. Back home again the girls played a couple rounds of croquet while I went to Winco to buy spices (they sell them in bulk, so whenever I'm in town I buy some to refill my empty bottles).

I wasn't nearly so exhausted this night, but I got home from the store pretty late. So I trundled off to bed while the girls watched another movie.

Thursday's plan was to go into Salt Lake City for more shopping and to visit Temple Square.

Kaylie and Ruth Ann are ready for the day's adventures.

When we got to Salt Lake I, being excessively ...frugal (cheap?), found a place to park for free (behind the Conference Center), but only for two hours. So we walked all the way across Temple Square to City Creek Mall, where the girls tried on more clothes and bought some makeup brushes. And by then it was time for me to walk all the way back and move the car. So I took the girls' purchases with me, stashed them in the car, and enjoyed two minutes of air-conditioning in the car while I moved it to another (free) spot. Then I walked across the hot, paved world back to City Creek. All this walking gave me a chance to get over-heated...  I mean it gave me a chance to call Bruce and let him in on our adventures.

I met up with the girls at the mall, and we walked over to Harmon's (a really nice grocery store) where we bought lunch and ate in their ...what would you call it? A food court?  A cafe? The place where they have tables and chairs so you can sit and eat if you want to. It really is a cool store, and one of the things I miss in Vernal.

I have to admit that I got all touristy and took this picture at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building—mostly so Bruce could see that flower arrangement behind the girls: A draped flag, all made of flowers, with floral fireworks next to it.
But the girls are cute in all their new, yellow things.

After lunch it was time to move the car again. This time I made the girls go with me; they stowed their purchases away, and we went to the museum on Temple Square. Did we look at exhibits? No. The girls wanted to look at the gift shop. :-D By the time we finished there it was time to head home so we could avoid the rush-hour traffic.

Back home we all needed a rest. This meant that the girls went into their room to talk and giggle, and I went into my room to cool down and to stretch. And then we went to Barnes and Noble. While the girls shopped, I sat in a chair and read a book. (I really am old.)

We had a simple dinner at Grandpa's house, and this time I joined the girls while they watched their nightly movie. Then we had ice cream sundaes with Grandpa before we all went to bed.

Friday morning we packed up, thanked Grandpa, gave hugs, and headed home.

We'd had a fun-filled, action-packed three days! Big, BIG thanks go to Grandpa and to Aunt Marian! We couldn't have done it without you.

The girls had some pleasurable, leisurable times with some of their best friends; they enjoyed themselves and got some nice things, and I was glad to act as consultant, companion, and cab-driver for them. It was a pretty good time.