Tag: recovered

A splash of colour to chase away those winter blues..

After:

A parting shot of this winged Parker Knoll-style armchair, completely re-upholstered using modern techniques and materials,

is now hopefully brightening the cold dark and grey winter months at a lovely home in Ealing, West London.

Covered in #SvensktTenn #Joseffrank #Teheran

 

Before:

Every genuine Parker Knoll I have ever worked on carries a manufacturers stamp on the frame with a product number. This chair did not carry that stamp and so I had to treat it as a mid-century modern winged armchair in a style similar to a Parker Knoll.

As I had no idea of the true origins of the chair (make and model) I treated all the aged foams on the inside back and seat as not fit-for-purpose as I was uncertain as to their flame retardancy. Fitting new rubberised hair and medium grade foams, wrapped in polyester skin wadding was, legally, the best choice I thought I could make , ensuring the fillings didn’t exceed the shapes and thickness of the originally fitted foams.

The elastic webbing on the seat disintegrated upon removal so there was no sense trying to refit already damaged seat webs into a chair which needed new fillings and an expensive fabric top cover to be fitted. So the seat webs were upgraded to Pirelli webbing, fitted to prolong the suspension’s life within the chair.

As for the seat cushion itself;  the original filling, which in itself had degraded had no protection between the original foam and it’s top cover, this would have made the seat unusable within a short period of time of constant use. Simply recovering in the manor it came in would have worn out both the seat foam and the new linen top cover , as well as not necessarily conforming to the relevant health safety & fire regs. for domestic furniture.  I replaced the old foam with a medium soft grade foam, wrapped in white polyester skin wadding and stockinette, which protects the foam and the top cover from excessive wear through friction and ultra violet light (which degrades foam) while keeping all the fillings in place, having cut and shaped the foam and stitching its cover to the same size and shape as the original cushion .

My favourite aspects which I brought into the treatment and application of this wonderful fabric include the 7-colour topstitching on the seat cushion border, and the two velvet colour-coded cover buttons fitted into the inside back.

As the fabric itself was not compliant, the use of a wool safe flame retardant barriercloth was used between all of the fabric used in the chair and the fillings, additionally helping to prolong the life of the fabric from excessive wear.

My heartfelt thanks go out to Rowena Murphy who assisted me in the full re-upholstery of this statement piece.

From Tangerine to Aquamarine Wingback Dreams…

Fresh-off-the-bench-Finished-Cathy-Green-Chair

Before (below): 

This reproduction Edwardian-style wingback had seen better days: The right hand facing wing had begun to “flap” around, the seat cushion contained Feathers which had totally degraded and it’s arms has seen better days

Wingback-Chair-before-Cathy-Green

I had brought a selection of my finest velvet ranges to my clients home, where I presented them to choose from I looked over their chair to check its condition. Once a fabric had been agreed  (An FR version of a Kobe “Real” velvet, after some discussions between myself and my client, it was decided to go for some special decorative nails as opposed to the original piping detail,  to provide a different finishing detail to the front arm scrolls. I also instead of using the fillings from the original seat cushion decided to discard and make up a completely new foam & feather combination bespoke seat cushion.

The original arm fillings were removed and also discarded having lost their density and “return”, giving me the opportunity to fit hessian in front of the jumbo elastic webbing. Replacing the old crumbly fillings with upgraded rubberised hair and foams .

 

 

 

 

 

 

After:Fresh-off-the-bench-Finished-Cathy-Green-Chair

 

 I couldn’t get this piece ready in time for xmas, for which I was extremely apologetic. However just before new year this piece was collected and my clients reaction said it looked fab and  “Soooo comfortable”. A dream realised in aquamarine. Many thanks to Richard & Cathy Green for your patience and custom.

 

 

 

Afrotechicolour therapy.. A wax block print patchwork chair

 

Before:

Rick Holland Donor chair4


This Mid-20th century modern piece was given to me back in 2010 by super talented artist, print & textiles designer and all round lovely lady Hannah Edy.

Although it was very much the worse for wear I faithfully kept it in storage thinking “That’ll be a great chair again someday..”

The opportunity to transform this piece came just after Xmas 2014, when a lovely couple contacted me from Mill Hill, NW7 and then made a few journeys’ down to my studio to chat with me about a piece they had previously seen online of my first attempt, a tub chair, at an waxblock patchwork print from a collaboration with Chantal Koning YouMeWe .

The process of transforming and updating this piece was a totally different challenge from my first version.

..A chair can take 8 hours or, in this case 40+ . It depends on your customers budget & ultimately how much love and care you wish to put into its re-upholstery.

This chair alone involves 74 carefully selected , cut, made compliant and stitched panels.

AFTER:

With new fillings of new rubberised hair and foams replaced the hopelessly deteriorated & crumbly foams.  A brand new serpentine spring suspension system, all lashed together(so the springs move in unison)upgraded and replaced the broken dried out Pirelli webbing which was originally stapled to the frame . The buttons are Nobilis Velvet, along with the fabrics, were chosen specifically and carefully between myself and the customer with all fabrics made compliant to the Health,Safety & Fire Regs (1988) through the use of a flame retardant barriercloth.

The Ottoman stools were built from scratch, along with a pair of duck,n,down feather-filled Scatter cushions

My deep thanks go out to Anna who assisted in the rip-down and was a great help for me to bounce off fabric selection ideas, Chantal Koning of YouMeWe for fabric inspiration and sourcing

and to Rick Holland & Katie Pomklova for their patience and input while I put together this work for them.

 2015-05-16 11.27.44

 

 

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Come On You Irons!!

Every so often my upholstery skills can take me away from upholstering beautiful chairs to working on seating whose use adds enjoyment of “the beautiful game” for the players, manager and potentially thousands of people inside the stadium every season.

It is an privilege to play my small part. I’ve always enjoyed watching Match of The Day (and loved playing the game in my youth). Now in my career it feels good that my skills can of service to a premiership football team (if not on the pitch!)

Congratulations to West Ham on their win against Manchester City this weekend. Best wishes for the rest of this season.

Special thanks to assistants Katie and Anna for coming off the bench and helping me put these projects in the back of the net!

Legends-WHUFC

Katie-removing-seating

Repaired-seats-WHUFC-3

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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.

A Sherbourne Satire?: Refurbished and recovered

I don’t know..sometimes my customers come up with strange and wonderful requests!

After discussing at length this Fabrics “suitability” (I.e; This “Tea-towel” Linen had to be backed with an F/R barrier cloth)

Adding my own touch of a “Lemonade” Piping from Todays Interiors Palermo range and delivering it back to the customer, we both found this refurbished and recovered Sherbourne footstool rather amusing.

Royal-Footstool

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Detail-Labelling-Royal-Footstool

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A Queen Anne Style in a wonderful weave…

Before..

James-chair-&-footstool

 

 

and After!..

Completely refurbished & recovered in Sandersons “Samarkand” (Colour Indigo).

For a very patient, kind & grateful couple near Crystal Palace (Thanks for that Beautiful bottle of Valpolicella (and that jar of homemade Chutney! )

James-Pearson-Chair

 

My thanks to Katy Chaytor Hill for her assistance

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