Getting off the Bench: Reworking a B&B Italia piece…
Before:
I was asked by my customer to take this B&B Italia Italia “Charles” Bench , reduce it’s height by 1″and then deep-button (or “tuft” if you are reading this in the US) in a Sanderson Taormina velvet replacing the tired,
cat scratched and shrunk-in the-wash look of its original cover.
“Looks simple enough a task to me” you might say, until you realise upon removing the cover what is going on underneath; that the whole frame is made from
steel tubing and the high density foam sits directly on a bed of super strength jumbo elastic 3″ webbing.
Of the various ways that could secure the buttoning (sorry, saying “tufting” just doesn’t work for me!), I wanted to use a system that I felt would have the most inflexibility, by which I mean that over time, the pleats wouldn’t be tempted to move around over the foam and elasticated base, while still retaining the look and finish that would still respect the overall original design for Antonio Citterio for B&B Italia by Antonio Citterio
Processes I employed involved getting the whole foam cut down on a giant foam cutting bandsaw, removing the foam entirely from the frame, applying 120z hessian to the base of the foams, removing rubber strips from the tubular steel frame and introducing cut hardwood patterns to provide a tackable surface to secure the buttoning cord and cutting, and fitting extra wood strips as well as applying 1″ extra foam and sundries around the base of the bench which helped to “fill” the gap left between the legs and the base of the bench left from fitting the new cover.
As well as successfully “Van-Dyking” the Velvet as the overall bench width was wider then then width of the roll when taking into consideration the direction of the pile
After
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