Beautiful Antique Wing Chair – Grey

Here was a rather nice old wing chair. Likely from around 1930-40. It had wonderfully carved Chippendale style “claw and ball” feet.

As received, the chair had clear signs of a poor upholstery job. If you look carefully, you can see a lot of uneven bumpiness, loosely stitched corner joints, and some other issues.

Legs (before touch-ups):

Lots of wrinkles and lumps:

The back looked pretty bad. Notice how the top follows just down half the wing, then makes a loose curve away from the edge. Check the last photo of this post to see a much better finish for a curved back panel.

Pierre knew immediately that this was a terrible job, and he cut a few exploratory holes into the upholstery. Here’s what we found:

After removing the pink layer and extra padding, he had most of the original green embroidered (and quite beautiful) original fabric:

Here’s the chair completely stripped of the green (which we were able to use for our patterns).

Thin new layer of padding over the original cotton.

And finally, the completed chair. What a difference!

The legs were touched-up with a very dark stain (near black), and waxed for a soft sheen.

Note how the back now follows the beautiful curves of the chair frame.