Adventures in Reupholstering
June 10, 2009 A couple weeks ago I came home from work after a horrible & exhausting day. I was in a rotten mood - I can't even remember why anymore, but as I turned the corner on my block I saw a chair across the street and down a few houses. [I'm telling you, I have an eagle-eye for garbage.] It had just started to rain lightly, but I trotted over to the chair and sure enough, my eyes did not deceive me. It was a dream chair!
I paused for a minute before snatching it - did a couple walk-bys and waited for some privacy before going in for the inspection. Sure, I considered the fact that it was in the garbage for a reason and what if that reason was bedbugs [eeeek!!!!], and the fact that it was raining out and the chair was upholstered in fabric, but then a wave of joy washed over me and I grabbed that little chair and sped-walked [heel, toe, heel, toe] the two blocks home. Even Abe had to hide his disgust and annoyance when he saw how excited I was.
In conclusion, I got home and used an upholstery cleaner on the fabric and some good cleaner to wipe down the wood pieces. Part of the deal with Abe letting me keep the chair is that I promised to get it professional reupholstered rather than trying to do it myself.
That brings me to.... what fabric to choose in the reupholstering of the chair?!
I immediately thought of this fabric from the ETSY shop Summersville. Unfortunately, because it is hand printed the sizes available are too small for my chair.
After some heavy searching I came across this fabric from the Alexander Henry HEATH collection. It actually comes in a few colors, but I'm leaning towards the blue...but maybe I'll go black. I haven't found a local retailer, but the reupholsterer said she would try to look for me too.
Actually, as I type up this post the shop doing the reupholstery for me is emailing me samples so I'm kind of live blogging as this project progresses. More to come....
**UPDATE**
My chair has been reupholstered (I chose the black & white) and it gets more compliments than anything I've ever owned! I'm using it in photos to display my pillows in my Etsy shop.
Reader Comments (6)
Good job!!!! Great find!! Just followed u from etsy front page and I'm wondering why everyone is so lucky with furniture and finds except me!!!!
Awesome!
Wow-ee, what a wonderful find. I'm a little green-eyed!
The chair is beautiful! Congrats on such an awesome score! I love the fabric you chose. I actually just saw your pillow on the etsy home page, and HAD to know more about the chair and was excited to see you linked here. Now I know what to start searching for! : )
Oops, Edit! Saw it in a treasury, not on the homepage.
This is so fabulous, and the story about how you found it and your writing... well, even more fabulous! I laughed out loud! So happy I stumbled upon this blog post!
Lovely work!
www.joyorcuttphotography.com
I have five of these chairs... sans bedbugs and professional reupholstering. They rock :)