Today is all about springs. There are two types of springs:

Coil seat springs

Serpentine/sinuous/zig zag springs.

It is best that you replace the springs with the same kind the furniture being upholstered originally came with. Mine sofa came with the serpentine springs. And I was actually relieved to find that out because the coil seat springs are much more complicated to install.

To install the serpentine springs, you remove the old and nail in the new. It is really that simple. It just takes a lot more man power than I could handle.. so I didn’t do this part alone.

Before getting started in replacing, you’ll need to buy new springs, spring clips, and twine. The spring clips are what holds the springs to the wood. The twine goes across the multiple springs to balance the weight out on to more than a few springs. If these are broken, it can cause your springs to deform.

Okay, so first was to remove the springs. That was easy enough. The spring clips were metal pieces pierced in to the wood frame. It’s a bit hard to see in the picture but it is the thing pointing at you.

Next was to add the new clips. The Hubster nailed these in, I apparently lack in the muscels needed hold down a spring and hammer in a nail. We learned the easies way to do this was to go from the bottom (near the seat) to the top of the sofa. Here is a picture of a clip without the spring.

The bottom spring was attached so that part of it was pushing back on the wood frame. We replicated the original way the springs were attached. Here’s the bottom spring.

And then the spring at the top is attached on the first zig zag, like so.

We got two of them installed and took a break! It is hard work!!  

The next part is adding the metal twine to the springs to make sure the weight on the spring is balanced among the springs. They have special tools to clip the clips to the twine and spring in one step, however they cost about $45! My cheap self just used regular pliers to push together the clips. {blisters were included in the not so expensive option} 

Before adding the clip to the spring and twine, gently squeeze the clip a little to prevent it from falling.

Bend the three sides in to each other to form a tube clip and continue down the row. I added 4 rows of twine each to the seat and back springs to give it more support. {previously, it had only 3 each}

The springs part of the process had frightened me because I was worried that the springs wouldn’t get installed the right way or they would just pop right off. .. Luckily none of that has happened. Thanks of course to the Hubster for his muscles.

Things still left to do:

• Finish removing the fabric/padding.
• Inspect the springs and check if they need replacing  (The seating springs need to be replaced.)
• Decide if webbing is needed to hold shape between the spaces in the frame. (The original piece used cardboard..) (Webbing will go over the armrests and some on the back.)
• Pick fabric and order
• Get foam for backing and seating; batting and foam for springs and sides
• Start fixing the frame
• Apply webbing
• Replace springs
• Attach all padding on to the sofa
• Attach the fabric

Check out the journey up until here:
Part 1 – Starting the upholstery process
Part 2 – Ripping the sofa to the bare bones
Part 3 – Shopping for supplies

Sorry for the lack up posts in the past couple of weeks. Life happens sometimes and you have to just deal with it.

- ASH

[Photos from here and here]

Tags: design, diy, furniture, sofa, upholstery
Filed under: Intérieure Design