These were two vintage/retro chairs. They were pretty dirty and in horrible shape, but they had the potential to be really great chairs. Apparently the client’s wife had been hoping he would throw them away, but I’ll bet she liked the final results.

Before!

Apparently they must have goofed at the factory because there was a new, unused yellow cover in the same fabric under one of the two chairs.

The foam that was left in the chair had completely disintegrated into crumbling dust.

The chair frames are actually made from moulded fibreglass.

The chrome stands also needed to be cleaned and polished. Here’s a before/after showing the difference!

The finished photos are shown without the little adjustable feet, because Pierre had to acid-soak them to remove the rust.

What a difference!

Here is a lovely antique chair that looked fine, but was in need of an overhaul. I liked the velvet, but the client wanted the chair to match the wing chairs we recovered for her earlier this year: Blue wing chairs.

Before:

As soon as I had seen this chair, I was excited (because I love antiques), but I also felt that something was wrong about it… The seat just didn’t look right.

After removing the seat fabric, I could see why it looked wrong. A previous upholsterer had covered over the original rails, which were in a beautiful walnut.

He (or she) really butchered the chair. This is heartbreaking to see.

The holes could be fixed (at additional cost) but the client didn’t want to invest the extra money into the repairs.

The chair frame was very loose, so it had to be dismantled, scraped, and reglued.

All solid again, touched-up, and ready for webbing.

New webbing and 8-way hand tie.

New burlap.

Original straw-stuffed edge roll reattached and re-stitched.

The original straw, and horsehair were reused, along with fresh cotton.

Here’s the finished chair. We did minimal additional damage to the rails (only 2 or 3 staples), should the next upholsterer/owner choose to repair the rails.

We were also extremely lucky to find a gimp cording (the ribbon edge) that was nearly a PERFECT match to the blue fabric. It’s nearly invisible.

Note that the wood side braces are now much more visible, and not buried under fabric (see before photos).

I was quite surprised that this sofa was actually an IKEA piece. A lot of people assume that most Ikea products are “throw away”, but this sofa was actually pretty well made. This is the third piece for a client in natural linen.

See two (3) previous pieces here:
Pair of Easy Chairs
Loveseat

Again, the sofa has seen better days.

To match her loveseat better, the arms were modified.

Here’s the finished and refreshed sofa! Ready for many more years of use.

This was probably one of the most comfortable chairs I’ve ever sat in. I quite liked the traditional (and fun) fabric it had, but the chair was being given to the clients’ daughter, and was going in a nice neutral (modern) grey.

Along with the chair was an ottoman, which was a total nightmare (you’ll see why).

Before:

To make the two pieces blend together better, we had to refinish both to match, in a medium-to dark walnut colour.

But before we could do that, we had to strip down the pieces. Here’s the beginning of the “Ottoman From Hell”.

Cover 1 removed:

Ugh.

Cover 2 removed:

Ugh!

Cover 3 removed:

4 COVERS! FOUR! It took longer to strip down the ottoman than the entire rolled-arm chair!

The previous upholsterer was also lazy with the chair, since he upholstered over the original deck, as well as the arm caps:

These were *removed*, and the new deck installed properly. (Note refinished legs)

Finished ottoman:

Finished chair:
I should also note that this was a very well built chair, with a massive frame, and coils.

The back cushion and the seat were filled with soft padding, rather than a foam, which made them really comfortable. The arms and the height of the back were also just perfect. This is the kind of chair you can spend hours in, or even fall asleep in. The clients’ daughter is one lucky gal!

Here were two nice small arm chairs. The client has us redo these two chairs as well as dome dining room chair seats (not shown) in the same fabric (the chair seats were in a red version of the same fabric, and the arm chairs are in a teal version).

Before:

Pierre and I didn’t like the “button end caps” on the arms, and we didn’t have any of them in stock, so we made some traditional arm caps for the chair (I think it looks much better this way).

After:

This was an unusual repair, because the seat was made from an embossed cardboard, made to look like tooled leather.

This was a “complicated/tricky” repair, since it was impossible to flatten the disc, due to stretching over time into a domed curve. The seat was repaired as well as we could, and reinforced, with matching replacement tacks installed.

The rocker was also quite beautiful, with Art Nouveau inspired pressed decorations on the back crest. The added decoration under the front is also a late Victorian element, which would roughly date the chair to the turn of the last century.

The chair had great patina.

Unfortunately the most important shot was the one that turned out a bit blurry.

This was a nice side chair, with carved legs and arm details, tufted back, and the client was a young lady wanting to have the chair redone for a new apartment.

The work involved refinishing the frame, and making new covers/patterns, and re-stuffing the seat.

As-is, I absolutely loved the old fabric that was on it. The colour was a beautiful lime-gold with an embossed brownish dark green pattern. The look of it was similar to what you’d expect from the old embossed table cloths. This fabric, however, was not the original (as you’ll see below).

An interesting note is that the fabric was installed sideways on this chair. Usually a pattern like this would be installed in the other direction (with the main pattern forming harlequins/diamonds).

Here is the original fabric, with a white background and green club-like patterns. The previous upholsterer just sewed the new fabric directly over the old one to form the tufted back. This is just laziness. The foam from the original back panel (with the tufts) was worn out, so we replaced the entire thing.

Newly refinished frame, with re-stuffed seat, and new Terylene padding.

New back webbing.

The finished chair! (In the end, the client wanted no buttons)

Originally, the client had thought of using a matching gold fabric on the chair back. She didn’t like the way it looked in the lighting at her place, so she had us make a throw pillow with it instead. The gold pillow fabric looked like a perfect match “in person”, but as seen in the camera photos, it doesn’t seem to match at all. In person, the colour of the pillow looks much more orange/gold.

Here is a good quality chair, with coil springs made by Fraser Bros. of Montreal, still in the original fabric. The client wanted the chair modernized, with no facings (front arm caps), no piping, and a different skirt design.

Before:

While we were waiting for finial decisions about the patterns/designs, we re-tied the springs in the deck, and installed new burlap. The reason the arm fabric was still attached was for our patterns.

New burlap and hand-stitched original edge roll.

Here’s the finished chair, HOWEVER: the client originally wanted the skirts as shown in these photos, but he did not like them, so we had to remake them. The finished skirts went up to the corners (as normal), and I have no pictured with the skirts redone.

The crease at the back corners were also fixed.

This was a lovely swivel rocker made by Barrymore in 1983. The original fabric was quite worn out, and it was in an off-white yellow tone velvet/suede. The new fabric was a similar soft suede in an off-white leaning more towards ivory/grey.

The date can be seen at the top.

I love how this chair turned out, and the new fabric was super soft and luxurious.

Unfortunately, I have no “before” photos of this chair. It had a deteriorated vinyl in a leather-look pattern, in a similar colour.

The chair was reupholstered in genuine leather from a piece we had on hand. We were able to reuse the original tacks.

Apparently this chair was bought from an auction or a garage sale, but it originally came from the House of Commons (Parliament).

The construction of the chair was massive. Most of the pieces were 2″ thick. The front feet were clad in bronze caps.