Building your Stool or Bench

In your kit you will find the following:

Plywood base all cut, sanded and drilled and stamped with Searsport Rug hooking.

(The stamped side is the right side or bottom of your stool. You want to see the stamp as you work on it.)
HD foam already cut to measure
Batting, cut to size
Four wooden feet
bolts, nuts and washers
A piece of muslin already cut to measure

Attach the bolts

Start by attaching the bolts and washers and nuts to the base. One end of the bolt is fine thread and one is coarse. You want the coarse thread up for the wooden feet, so on the side of the stamp. Place a bolt threw the hole and add a washer to each side and tighten with a nut on each side. Crank as tight as you can using a small wrench on each side to hold it as you work. You want to almost indent the wood to make sure they are not going to slip when you attach the feet later on.

Layer it up

Lay your piece of muslin on a flat clean surface.
Lay the  big pieces of batting on top of it. Fold the two long pieces into a smaller square and place in the center. Sizes are rough and that’s OK.
Now lay your HD foam on top and centered on the small square  of batting, that’s all your layers.

Place the piece of wood on the HD foam and make sure you see the stamp of our name and that the bolts showing are the coarse not the fine threads.

Check the sides

 

Place one hand in the center of the board and slightly push it down. Fold each side up, turn by turn and make sure you are about even on all four sides. The batting should come right to or almost to the bottom of the plywood. Not covering the sides of it, but the inside bottom. Adjust the HD foam and plywood base until you are roughly even.

 Three staples only!

If everything is even then you are ready to start attaching to the wood. I use a power stapler. But you can use an upholstery stapler or upholsteyry tacks and hammer. Fold the center of one side of muslin down about ¼ of an inch and pull up over the side of the stool and to the bottom of the wood. Place three tacks or staples. Apply slight pressure while you do this so the cover is tight when you are finished. Turn the stool around to the opposite side and repeat. Only put three staples or tacks in for right now. Now do the other two sides. So each side is fastened to the wood on the bottom with only three staples in the center of each side.

Trim the corners

Turn it right side up and pull only the muslin corner, back and up, over the top of the stool, just to expose the batting points on the corners.

Hold them together and cut down from the top through all the layers, removing the bulk. Do not cut the muslin or cut it so close you see the HD foam. Flip it back upside down and pull the muslin back down.

Staple out to the corners

Now fold down the muslin edge ¼ of an inch and working from the center, where you already put in three, staple out to the left hand side, right to the corner. (I'm right handed, left handed workers reverse it) Turn the stool ¼ turn and repeat. Do this for all four side. Now the cover is fastened ¾ of the way on all four sides.

Close to the corners
Fold the muslin again ¼ in and staple out from the center to about where the bolt is to the right hand side. Not right to the corner this time. You want to keep space for closing the corners when you pleat them.
To close the corners I use a pair of scissors and use the point to push the muslin into the the cover in the open corner. It is going between the muslin and batting. Keep working it until it lays smooth and is just a nicely tucked fold. As you draw out the scissors, pull them down to the bottom of the corner, what will be the top really, of the stool when finished. This helps pull it all inline and smooth the point.

Staple the corners
Fold the top of the muslin and tuck any extra under and staple it in place. It usually take 3-4 staples to hold everything tightly on the corner.

 

Attach the feet

Now paint or stain add and tighten up the feet and you are finished!

Any questions just yell.