Spruce: A Step-By-Step Guide to Upholstery and Design - by Amanda Brown (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Discover the joys of upholstery and bring new life to your worn-out furniture. With a few basic tools, an eye for color, and some ingenuity, you can customize your home with fabrics and textures that reflect your unique personality. This comprehensive guide features more than 900 photographs and includes five projects designed to teach you all you need to know to reupholster any piece of furniture. You'll soon be confidently stripping down old sofas, stuffing sagging ottomans, and revamping chairs with your own distinctive style.

From the Back Cover

UPDATE YOUR HOME WITH A FURNITURE MAKEOVER

Customize your home with one-of-a-kind upholstered pieces spruced up with contemporary fabrics and fresh details. Amanda Brown's expert instructions - and more than 900 step-by-step photographs - guide you through stripping your furniture down to the frame and then creating exciting new pieces. From calculating yardage to diamond tufting and attaching webbing, here are all the skills you need to elevate that thrift store sofa and your grandmother's slipper chair from frumpy to fabulous.

Review Quotes

Few things make me happier than watching the people we work with here at D*S do well. Amanda Brown from Spruce has been our resident upholstery expert for a while and we were thrilled when she told us she was working on a book. That gorgeous book, Spruce: A Step-by-Step Guide to Upholstery and Design, officially launched yesterday and is chock-full of beautiful (and helpful) upholstery instructions, illustrated by more than 900 step-by-step photographs. Upholstery has always been daunting to me, but Amanda is an excellent teacher and everything she's shared in this book will help you master the techniques and skills you need to reupholster any piece of furniture to suit your own taste and style.

"Brown, a professional upholsterer in Austin, TX, knows how to breathe life into tired old furnishings. Her style is hip, eclectic, and delightful, and she injects her personality into the projects, showing off her upholstery prowess. Brown rounds out the manual by offering interior design options. Accompanying photographs demonstrate technique and illustrate each step. Readers will find information on skills requiring much more detail, such as the sewing and stripping furniture, in the appendixes. VERDICT Though the author only covers five projects -- a sofa, an ottoman, and three chairs -- she does so in such great depth that quality wins out over quantity. Upholstering is for the brave, and there are a lot of specialty tools here that might intimidate would-be DIYers. Despite these limitations, this is a wonderfully readable volume that speaks to current style. Very highly recommended for any DIY collection." -- Library Journal, starred review

If you have ever had an inkling to try to upholster a thrift store find, this awesome book can show you how.

About the Author

Amanda Brown is the author of Spruce: A Step-by-Step Guide to Upholstery and Design. Brown is the owner of Spruce, a furniture redesign studio in Austin, Texas. Her fresh aesthetic for interiors has garnered acclaim from publications including the New York Times, Metropolitan Home, and Southern Living. She lives in Austin, Texas.

Grace Bonney is the author of the bestselling books In the Company of Women and Design*Sponge at Home. Bonney is passionate about equity, inclusivity, and supporting all members of the creative community: she founded Design*Sponge, a daily website dedicated to the creative community, which reached nearly 2 million readers per day for 15 years (and is now officially archived in the Library of Congress); Good Company, a print magazine and podcast about creative entrepreneurs; and After the Jump, a podcast about creatives that has reached over 500,000 listeners per episode. Bonney lives in New York's Hudson Valley with her wife and their three pets. Find her on Instagram and Twitter at @designsponge.