
by LIFE NOSTALGIC on MARCH 1, 2013
Miro’s Short Biography
Originally from Léon in Spain, Miro came to Victoria at the tender age of 17 to romance the ladies (“people thought I was a gigolo”) and pursue a career in upholstery. He worked for Standard Furniture, The Empress Hotel (where he was head upholsterer) and Eatons before establishing his home studio. Just from my short chat with him, I could tell that Miro is severely allergic to shoddy upholstery jobs.
Why re-upholster?
“Some people look at this chair and think: ‘that’s a piece of shit.’ UM, EXCUSE ME?! It’s hand carved and will last hundreds of years.”
The Course
“I don’t want to see anybody going bigger than this chair,” Miro says. “If you start too big, you will run into problems.”
He suggests starting your upholstery education with a dining chair, small stool or pillows. Sometimes people end up getting disappointed and frustrated when they find out they can’t work on a big puffy armchair in a course – the kind of work that would take an expert like Miro a whole week and cost around $1000!
“Being an upholsterer is like being an artist, it’s a very creative thing.”
If you need to refinish your project, you have to do it BEFORE the upholstery portion. (Guess what I’m doing this weekend?)
The Tools
To upholster properly, you’d need all of these tools.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves – there’s no way I am personally investing that much when I don’t even know if this might be my last as well as my first upholstery experience.
Miro says you can cheat and start off with a hammer, scissors, flat screwdriver and pliers. The only thing that might be a hassle is finding upholstery tacks – short/thin regular nails can be substituted.
The Fabric
“Buy good quality fabric that’s going to last,” Miro says.
You always have the option of using Scotchgard on the finished product as well.
Join us!
If you can’t make it this time, there is also an April course.
Special thanks to Reb Stevenson from THE LIFE NOSTALGIC for her coverage of our new upholstery course!