Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Custom Chairs

A couple of weeks ago, Emily from Pigeon in the Parlor, asked us to look at some chairs she wanted us to paint. She had six chairs with the needle point seat covers, two captains & four side chairs. I told her to bring one in & we would take a look at it. Of course the only before picture I have is after we striped the chair down to the springs right before painting.


This is one of the Captains chairs.  We started with one of the side chairs that had the most salvageable seat cover. Emily wanted them painted Annie Sloan's Old White with the dark wax on the details. When we delivered the first chair we came home with the other five. Emily really hoped we could salvage a few of the needle point seats, but after we got them all home & looked them over really good, we were only able to save one out of the five.  So we painted out the one just like the previous needle point chair, now Emily had a matching pair.

Now we had our work cut out for us. The remaining four were in sad shape. The cushions were completely dry rotted inside. We had to strip them down to the springs & start over. Here they are all painted, waxed & ready for upholstery:



This was the easy part.



I just love how that dark wax enhances the detail.


Beautiful distressing....



Graceful curvy arms.... & just look at those industrial strength springs!  These are very well made chairs. They just don't make them like this anymore.

Now we were ready to upholster. Emily wanted drop cloth seat covers with different graphics on them. I found four different graphics from the Graphics Fairy. My Mom & I really learned a lot on this project. We thought we could use the old seat cover as a template for the new covers. NOT!!  They were so stretched out & we put on 2" foam, so needless to say the first covers were to small!
So we made new ones, big & square.  We cut where it needed it & stapled away.  This is defiantly a two person job.  Here is how they looked when we were finished:



We added nail head around the legs & arms....





I really need to make time to take better pictures. My Mom took these with her phone, which is fine, but I had a problem editing them. You get the idea..




Emily was very happy with these chairs. She now had a pair with the original needle point seats & four matching with the new drop cloth seat covers.

We grouped them with my Medallion table.  I wasn't sure how they would look together, but it looked pretty good.  Naturally I forgot to get a picture of them together. I really need to do better......

If you would like to see these chairs, they are for sale at Pigeon in the Parlor in Holly, Mi.  If you live in my area, & have a need for some custom furniture painting, feel free to contact us.  I love to read your comments.  Thanks for visiting & have a great day!  Dee


10 comments:

  1. Those are great, Dee! You are so right...they don't make them like that anymore!

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  2. I loved your work and the way you turned it out, it's amazing. The above chair is looking so beautiful and I'm so glad to have this blog. Anyway, thanks for sharing this.

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  3. Dee, the chairs are beautiful. You really brought out the details.

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  4. What a beautiful way to enhance those chairs!! You did a fantastic job!

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  5. I am so glad you visited Homespun happenings and commented on Ms.Vanity. Thank you. You did a wonderful job on these chairs! I love the drop cloth seat! I too love the dark wax and what it does to the details. I would love for you to link up any of your projects at my linky party called Rustic Restorations Weekend that goes live on Thursday evenings. I am your newest follower.

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    1. Thank you so much for linking this up to Rustic Restorations Weekend!

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  6. Hi, I'm your newest follower - wow, what gorgeous furniture! You did a brilliant job with them ... :0)

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  7. What beautiful chairs! Now you can really appreciate all the details!

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  8. omg the chairs are fabulous.

    thank you for such lovely inspiration! found you at MMS's link party, always a favorite!

    hope you can swing by:
    http://hellolovelyinc.blogspot.com/2012/07/summer-sale-giveaway.html

    smiles to you.

    michele

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