Watch an Old Chair Being Reborn!

Some reupholster simply take your piece of furniture, carry it off to their workshop, and return it when it’s finished. The question is – what happens in between?

So here’s an opportunity for you to look over our shoulders as we tear down and rebuild a well-loved chair that had been built in the mid-1800’s.

Scroll over this chair to see it become new again.

 

See all the step in between below

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Here’s the chair when it arrived in our workshop…as you can see, it had seen a lot of use!

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When we started to strip off the upholstery, we saw that it had been reupholstered at least once! So you could say that we were giving it a third life…or maybe more. This isn’t unusual…very often an old chair can offer secrets from the forgotten past.

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Fortunately, the frame was good and sturdy, just needing to be reglued. There was no sign of dry rot or disintegration that would have required reinforcement with new wood.

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So we reglued the frame and prepared the seat for the spring work.

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We added more support to the seat, and retied the springs using the eight-way tie method

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Then covered the springs with burlap and applied the edge rolls

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Only then did we begin reupholstering, starting with the seat.

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Next, we reinforced the scrollwork on the arms with wood, and covered them with burlap.

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Then covered them with layers of cotton, foam and muslin for cushionin

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Next, we covered the arms with the customer’s chosen upholstery. Can you see the new chair starting to take shape?

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Adding foam cushioning to the backrest came next.

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Last of all, we upholstered the backrest and the seat cushion – and the chair was complete and ready for delivery to its delighted owner!