Editor, entrepreneur and "upholstery assistant"

The Upholsterer's Craft has been produced by me, Björn Hårdstedt. I'm based in Stockholm, Sweden.

As an experienced professional editor and producer of refined knowledge for the public sector, when I learned from my wife, who is a master upholsterer, of a book (the Swedish original Möbelstoppning som hantverk) that was in great demand though long sold out, rare at second-hand bookshops and even stolen from most libraries, I just had to accept the challenge of recreating it. After talks with the official publisher of the 1988 first edition, the Swedish Association of Master Upholsterers (STM), we concluded that the best procedure was that I took both the editorial and financial responsibility for the project. The work has been supported and endorsed by STM all along.

I set to work, OCR-scanning the text and scanning all the original photos and illustrations that were miraculously well kept by the original photographer. A thorough technical proof-reading was made. The new Swedish edition was published in 2019 and became an instant success.

When learning of the existence of a concept to an English translation, the plans for this English edition emerged, and is now published.

Besides my career as an editor, with 500+ books on my cv, I operate a business developing and selling sports glasses under my own brand name Velodrom (Velodrom is the business formally responsible for the Upholsterer's Craft). I also work as a paragliding instructor, as a home guard soldier in the Swedish Defence Forces, and occasionally, as illustrated in the photo, as a stripping assistant in my wife's upholstery workshop.