Tag: G-Plan

Non-Identical Twins..

Before:

The first of these pair of G-Plan E-Gomme chairs arrived in my studio last year from a lovely couple near Blackheath/Lewisham area,  who in my past many years ago had been great employers and have grown to become good friends and loyal supporters of my work, having seen my previous projects online and personally knowing what its like to run a business they were more empathic and sympathetic to the (daily) challenges faced being a self employed artisan/craftsperson

 

Cass-&-Neil-Staintons-1st-E-gomme-G-plan-chair

 

After: 

These pieces were a challenge because there not only had to be a fair few changes to the design; having prepared the show wood with the intention of developing one of these pieces to showcase a fabric textile print I had designed,  using the whole process to finally bring to market some of my previous skills in textile design into my current creative manifestation. Even roping in some fantastic help from a talented illustrator (Thanks Sarah McCarthy, your efforts will not be in vain!x)I couldn’t bring the design  to market as I couldn’t bring together enough resources  (I was attempting produce a specific fabric in time and so my customers had little choice but to choose fabrics they had sourced.

Luckily for me these customers had great taste (as well as tremendous patience), choosing 2 fabrics from Osbourne & Little:  Soumak , from their Tabriz Collection of weaves and “Dovetail” from their Abacus collection, making their use in these pieces compliant through the use of a flame retardant barrier cloth. Complimenting these fabrics,  I put together a custom wood stains for each. finishing the wood with layers of shellac and rubbing beeswax to create the right lustre. My heartfelt thanks to Katy Chaytor-Hill and Anna Frisch for their assistance.

 

G-plan-E-Gomme-chair-in-Osbourne-&-Little-'Dovetail'-from-Abacus-collection

 

 

 

 

G-plan-E-Gomme-chair-In-O&L-Soumak-Weave-from-Tabriz-Collection

 

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

Before-Pic-G-plan-x2

 

 

 

and after

 

 

 

Twin-Ercol-image3

 

 

 

 


 

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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