Course

HOW IT STARTED

A few years ago, we bought our first house. It needed work — the kind of work that adds up fast when you're paying someone else to do it, and feels impossible when you've never done it yourself. So I decided to figure it out.

I started teaching myself. Carpentry, painting, tile, refinishing, building things from scratch — slowly, one project at a time, mostly by doing it wrong the first time. I started sharing the process online without really thinking about it, and over a few years a community of people built up who knew me as the DIY girl figuring it out as she went. That part of the story still matters. The skills I built then are what made everything that came after possible.

WHY UPHOLSTERY

In early 2025, I lost my brother suddenly. In the months after, I needed something to put my mind into — something hard, something that would take all of my attention, something I could disappear into when I needed to. Upholstery became that thing.

I picked it as the project because it was the hardest one I could think of that I hadn't tried. It used some of what I already knew — the wood work, the building, the working with my hands — but most of it was completely new. The technique, the materials, the eye for what makes a piece feel right in a room. There was enough to learn that it could hold all of me for as long as I needed it to.

I started by reupholstering pieces for myself, then for family and friends. Then a few people offered to pay me. Then a portfolio took shape. The business grew quietly, one piece at a time, and somewhere along the way it stopped being a project and started being the work.

HOW I WORK

Every ottoman starts in my Ontario studio with raw wood: solid wood for the structural members, plywood where the piece needs to hold its shape over years. I cut it, join it, and build the frame myself. Then come the springs, the padding, the batting, and finally the fabric. Frame to finish, all by hand.

Most upholsterers don't actually make their own frames — they buy frames from a frame shop and upholster what's already built. I make both. I do it that way because I want to be the one deciding the proportion, the joinery, and the finish on every piece that leaves the studio.

THE PART THAT MATTERS MOST

Here's the thing I most want you to know about how I work, because I think it gets overlooked: upholstery is a craft you can learn. Someone with thirty years of experience can build a technically perfect ottoman that doesn't quite look right in a room — the proportion is a little off, the leg doesn't suit the seat, the fabric and the silhouette don't agree. The skill is the part you can practice your way into. The eye for what makes a piece feel right is the rarer part.

That's the part I care most about. The frames are well-built and the upholstery is clean — but the reason one of my ottomans looks like itself across the room is everything that gets decided before the staple gun ever comes out. Which fabric. Which leg. Which proportion against which silhouette. Those are the decisions I trust most about my work.

HOW I CHOOSE

Proportion comes first, always. A great ottoman is mostly geometry — the height against the depth, the leg shape against the seat, the way the silhouette reads from across a room. Fabric and finish come after. If the proportion is wrong, no upholstery rescues it.

I spend a lot of time studying English designers and the way the best fabric houses use pattern with restraint. I'm slow about choosing fabric. Slower about choosing the leg. Most of my ottomans take longer to make than they have to. I've made peace with that.

THE WORK NOW

I make two kinds of pieces. Custom one-of-a-kind ottomans for clients who want exactly the piece they've been picturing — fabric, leg, dimensions, all chosen together. And a small ready-made collection that ships, for anyone who'd like one of these in their home without the wait.

I don't make many. I'd rather make a small number of considered pieces than a large number of close-enough ones. Every piece is built to last — the frame will outlast the upholstery, and in twenty years, when you want a new fabric, the piece can be redone and it'll still be itself.

If you've made it this far, I'm glad you're here. Thanks for reading.

— Samantha
Made by hand, in Ontario.