Tag: deep

When George met Ray: A chair for an Old House New Home.

Before:

In May 2016 , after completing the first 2 shows for the BBCTV show “Money for Nothing”, something wonderful happened: I was approached by another production company to produce work on a project for a Channel 4 TV show :

George Clarke’s ” Old House New Home.”

The Chair I was asked to re-upholster was an 19th Century Crapaud armchair. The chair turned up at my studio first, and then later George turned up with a film crew larger than life and full of beans.His enthusiasm was infectious.

My initial enthusiasm gave way little once we started to rip down the chair. Once stripped down to the bare frame I could see that this piece needed a complete overhaul as it was riddled with woodworm.

After:

To restore this piece, I enlisted the help of master woodwork/craftsman Tom Foy, who did an excellent job returning the stripped down frame with fresh new support and stuffing rails from which I began applying new suspension and fillings.

I decided  to apply a fully traditional approach to the suspension, fillings  and top cover , which became a point of pride for me as I wanted to produce a piece that would last many many years, using the finest traditional materials afforded in the budget.

During the process a nice travelling South African upholsterer visited my studio  lending me a hand. During the process and while under pressure to reupholster the works within the film scheduling,  he tried to convince me to use staples in certain areas which, perhaps would have speeded up the process, however, I so wanted to produce a fully  “traditional finish” I stuck to my guns.

It took a few all-nighters and even by the morning the piece was due to be collected to go up to Leicester I confess I still hadn’t fully finished stitching the final covers on!  However , with a little skill and a few tricks of the trade the chair did finally appear in the final edit and after filming I went up to Leicester and finished the chair in the clients home.

If you click on the link below you might still be able to watch the episode on Channel 4 on demand:

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/george-clarkes-old-house-new-home/on-demand/62968-004

Many thanks to Wendy Shorter Interiors, Rowena Murphy, Amazing Productions, Tom Foy, Anna Frisch, George Clarke

Double trouble ..

I cannot deny that finishing these pieces of mid-century british furniture from G-plan was a tremendous relief for me (as well as the customer) It represented overcoming a real mental hurdle as for some reason I had got myself mentally “stuck”: I had previously upholstered a type 6250 in fabric for a friend before however this time I was asked to refurbish and recover these in a beautiful “Cowboy Burnt Tan” hide from Wildman & Bugby. So converting the fabric meterage to “hides” was a new lesson. I was recommended to the owners of these chairs, who are a lovely family living up In Chalfont St. Giles. They  also gave me  a matching footstool, a bent plywood G.A. Jenkins /Tecta chair and a children’s toy to re-upholster, recover and repair   respectively) of these pieces by  Photographer and friend Roulla Giorgio.  They showed me great patience during the process of producing these I went for an “advanced buttoning tutorial from my old tutor through which I gained more confidence to tackle both pieces.

I didn’t do myself any favours by going for full deep buttoning whereas the “original” cover only had “floating” buttons through sewn seams and also choosing to create a custom suspension system; re-enforcing the base of each seat first to accommodate carefully positioned Serpentine (zig-zag) springs, lashed together  between the original rocking mechanisms so that they provided optimum support without interfering with the rockers. This replaced the elastic green webbing which the seats bases had been previously fitted with.

..before

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and after

 

 

 

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Presenting the final of the two chairs gave me an opportunity to invite Roulla to accompany me to the family home to finally shoot the chairs and that evening  we were both treated to a Sushi dinner made by the family

My sincere thanks to Emilios & Julia , Roulla Giorgio and Wendy Shorter Interiors for the training.

Atelier Ray Clarke Ltd T/A Ray Clarke Upholstery & Design Company registration number :12018355