Tag: Leather

BBC Money for Nothing project series 2 episode 14: Leather & Linen Love

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The second of the 2 projects I completed for the 2nd BBC1 Television series of  “Money For Nothing“, was a 2-seater “department store” sofa, which was saved from the rubbish tip (and potential landfill) by presenter Sarah Moore.

What started out as a concept recover working with an idea Sarah had in mind , ended up becoming (almost) a complete rip-down to the frame,repair, refurbishments , reupholstery & new concept cover.

The amount of cardboard and cheap materials used in its construction brought out the sort of language not fit for public ears , and thankfully was edited out/ “left on the cutting room floor”.

Even though I had an image in my minds eye of the overall look Sarah & I wanted to achieve it took a while for me to “get into” the overall concept.

However , I persevered  and after “ripping down” removing every last piece of “rubbish” cardboard, replacing the fillings in the arms with good quality webbing, hessians, rubberised hair and new foams forming the arms. Coming up with the hand stitched leather and linen “elbow patch” arm panels  and the ” raw “finished edges  and leather piping and the use of a complimentary simulated suede super fabric to bring together the leather and linen elements, the rest of the sofas overall look “came into focus” fairly quickly.

Introducing nice little touches like the leather & linen scrolls on the sides of the back , and more patches finishing off the front borders’ at the corners above the rubbed down stained & beeswaxed  legs, and replacing the worn out polyester fibre filled seat cushions with

high-grade, shaped ,quality foam (wrapped)cores , while at the same time making sure every element of the cover conformed to strict UK health safety & fire regulations through the use of a Flame retardent barrier cloth behind the top cover brought a rustic, raw, country feel with a superb level of comfort that thankfully, a couple were so enamoured with once they had seen and sat on it, had purchased it at Sarah’s Barnyard sale and at a “blinking good price” for the quality and labour which went into it which maybe should of sold for much more but hey, I’m just grateful that it sold at a profit which was returned to the surprised and delighted previous owner.

Sarah-Moore-&-Ray-Clarke-MFN

Before:

Knoll-style 2-seater chair BBCTV MFN

After:

 

Leather&Linen sofa By Ray Clarke For Money for Nothing

 

My heartfelt thanks go out to everyone I roped into helping me complete this particular project: Anna Frisch, Joanna Maeva, All the production team at Friel Kean Films, The Cloth Shop, my upholstery warehousemen/suppliers, Wendy Shorter, Louise at Shoreditch Design Rooms, My Dearest Louise Jinks, Nina, Jan Etoile and all my dear friends who consoled, counselled and fed me tea, biscuits, words of encouragement and support along the way.

 

 

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Club chair Leather Repair

Leather club chairs can be stubborn beasts. They don’t like to be confined into small spaces (like put in storage)and crushed up against other objects.
As you can see from the image below the (outside) arm’s on this Michell Gold armchair suffered internal as well as external damage.

Julachair before


 

Club Chair arm repair1

Jula Armchair repair2

 

Having serviced the outside arms (restoring the fillings, restraining the hide and then feeding it with hide food & Carnauba), a snap on Instagram ,

some viewers useful feedback from my peers and then a chat to my customer  confirmed what else I had suspected needed to be sorted out to prevent any further

damage. To which end I created and fitted a new seat unit, which would help prevent the seat cushion borders from excessive wear and tear.

 Jula Krutsinger Club armchair restoration

After:
Jula Armchair leather repair & seat cushion replacement

Definitely worth doing the seat. Now this happy chappy has rejoined its family. (Many thanks for the brief visit!)

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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.

Ligne Roset Petite Siestre Armchair in Yarwood Hammersmith Moss Leather

before…ligne-roset-chair-before

..After

Petite-Siestre-chair2

While getting over a rotten head cold/feeling run down.. this became my first reclining armchair, a 12-year old Ligne Roset “Petite Seistre” in Yarwood Hammersmith “moss” Leather with mustard top-stitching. Challenges (apart from top-stitching ) involved sourcing the right colour and sized eyelets for fitting the head rest struts, and sourcing a new feet to replace the plastic ones (especially the one odd shaped one that was fitted as a replacement).

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