Do you own a piece of furniture from an older era that fights your mid mod mad aesthetic? If you’re willing to embrace the eclectic: Upholster it is an outrageous fabric or one that contradicts its original era. That’s what Christine did — and now, she says, she has a chair that “makes me smile every time I walk into my living room.” How outrageous did she go? Pretty darned outrageous >>
Christine writes:
Hi Pam. Referring to your post about new old stock fabrics from GilFabrics (Etsy), I ended up buying the blue/green wave fabric and reupholstered a chair in it. The chair is a Victorian/Eastlake type of chair (wrong century – ha ha). It looks fantastic.
I looked for fabric for two years for this chair, so thanks to you and your write up on (the fabrics in) that shop, I now have a chair that makes me smile every time I walk into my living room. The chair looks great with my “Cone” Chairs too. I’m just a mish mash of eras!
Nicely done, Christine! My “dream house” would be a mish mash of eras, too. P.S. Writing this post led me to look at GilFabrics again. I ended up buying some vintage vinyl — the gold scrolled — for use in my Mahalo Lounge — some of the vintage vinyls on the site are pretty awesome!
Oddly enough, the original fabric is quite close to the fabric that’s on my great-grandmother’s chairs, except for the cross bars. And I know my chairs’ fabric is original – we have photos from about 1912 of the same chairs.
Yes they are porcelain. I didn’t realize how lucky I was to have all 4 of them until you mentioned how difficult it was to find replacements
Yes I had it professionally reupholstered. It cost me $300 Canadian (excluding material). I don’t have the skill to do that kind of quality work myself…which I realized after taking an upholstery course (never again!)
Oh totes I remember this so well when I was kid! Often the wood was painted white.
Utterly brilliant. I love this. Did you do the upholstery yourself? If so I’m even more bowled over. You really saved that chair!
That chair should certainly attract attention!
Absolutely FANTASTIC!!
My local “adult-school” or “continuing education” providers often have upholstery classes to offer. You bring a simple project (at least one of them says “no couches for your first time taking the class.” I suspect that the instructors are either retired from upholstering, or are looking for customers or employees, or maybe just enjoy it. But it’s usually a once a week class for some number of weeks, and I’m sure you get help with measuring for fabric and so forth.
I haven’t taken one, yet, because though the class is inexpensive, the cost of materials is unknown, and it is a big commitment. However, if you made friends in class, you could probably have fun teaming up on projects, if you have the time
I’m sure classes could help avoid expensive errors.
If the strapping and padding are in good shape underneath it’s not too hard a project. If the furniture is in poor shape however it takes it to a whole new level of difficulty.
I love the before shot -outside in the Fall
And the after shot -outside in the snow ????
Nice job! Looks great!
What a nice way to breathe new life into this chair. Nice job!
With the new upholstery, you have a truly unique piece here! And by the way, Eastlake (from Charles Eastlake) is a style of furniture from the later Victorian period, related to the Arts and Crafts movement. I love it. I think it is particularly suited to mixing in with other styles and periods, especially when you have one outstanding “pop” piece like this.
Sock it to me (a-la Goldie Hawn on Laugh-In) Christine! It’s definitely a much more inviting seat IMHO now.
The one thing I have that I’d like to change the look of is a modest 1966 colonial style Ridgeway grandfather clock I inherited. If I could make a bamboo shell to fit over it and dress it up tiki style it would finally fit it’s location. Just a mask because it really is a nice clock.