Claire's Chair

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Claire's Bedroom chair for stripping and recovering.

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Claire's chair

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I was asked by a friend, Claire, to recover an old chair that has been in her family for many years.  It was previously covered in red fabric and was very worn in places with several stains.  

 

This chair now takes pride of place in her bedroom after I recovered it with fabric that she selected to go with her new colour scheme.  In addition to the fabric it also has 2 self coloured buttons and piped trim around the seat pad and the back cover, using a plain contrasting fabric.

 

I chose to deliver it to her on the occasion of her 50th birthday party.  Preparation for the day was quite emotional for her following a very traumatic and eventful couple of years.  I brought the chair into the house prior to all her guests arriving, and removed the blanket that I had covered it with.  When she saw it she was unable to contain her emotions, and shed tears of joy.  She said she never imagined that it would look so amazing.  She was so pleased with it that during her party she escorted some of her guests upstairs to view it for themselves.

 

She now has a chair she is proud of to sit on at her dressing table for many more years.

                                                                                                                                               

Upholstery process

This chair was initially stripped of the old cover, and the panels were used as a template for the replacement panels.  The springs, webbing and padding were in good condition and therefore there was no need to strip the chair back to the wooden frame.  The chair had previously been reupholstered from the original covering once before.  There was, however no reinforcing calico cover to the chair that would provide any protection on the back for the fabric panel.  I attached an extra layer of fire resistant wadding over the entire chair for extra padding and then fixed a stretched cover of calico covering the entire fabric area before attaching the patterned fabric with upholstery nails, ensuring that the pattern was consistent throughout the various panels.

The plain fabric was piped and machine stitched to the seat panel and the back panel before fixing to the chair frame.  The back panel was attached using invisible hand stitching and all raw edges securely concealed to complete the renovation.