Giving a Chair New Life…Finally!

Does it seem like reupholsterers are less common today than they once were?

My mom had a good one, but he was outside of town and only came in every few months.

I guess not as many people reupholster furniture as they once did.

But for a while  – actually quite a while – I needed a good reupholsterer for this chair, which once sat in my husband’s grandmother’s dining room.

The chair made its way to us way back in 1988, and it’s been in this condition the whole time.

Can you believe I waited so long to do something?

For a lot of years the chair was in our master bedroom. In fact, my husband, Tom, carefully put his dress shirt over the back of this chair when I called him home because I was in labor with our daughter, 22 years ago this month.

He was convinced he would be going back to work, even though I was already eight days overdue. His dress shirt was still there when we brought her home from the hospital two days later. I guess we didn’t think that baby was ever going to come.

Back in those days we just didn’t have the extra money to reupholster the chair. But even when that was no longer true, I never seemed to get around to it.

I was overwhelmed by choosing a fabric, figuring out how much I would need, and finding someone to do the work. It all seemed like such a process.

But a couple of years ago I noticed an ad being run by a reupholsterer in a home magazine that is sent to us every month or so. After a few months of seeing the ad, I sent off an email, not sure if I would even get a response. But Chuck (of Dela Studios if you’re in the KC area) emailed me back right away.

He asked for a picture of the chair and I emailed him the same picture that’s at the top of this post. He gave me a quote via email and told me that he and his wife had a roomful of fabric samples in their studio, which they ran out of their home. I was welcome to come and look through them if I liked.

So I did exactly that. I checked out a few of my favorite fabric books to try at home and eventually settled on a masculine, menswear-type fabric, since this is the chair that Tom often sits in to read the paper and drink coffee in the mornings.

In addition to recovering the chair, Chuck and his wife added new foam stuffing, tightened up the joints, and touched up the wood. Although I asked them not to touch the wood up too much because I wanted to keep most of the distressing, especially on the arms.

I love the job they did. Isn’t she pretty?

Chairs are girls, aren’t they?

P.S. Reupholsterer is the most awkward word ever.

This post is part of Inspired Sunday, Seasonal Sundays, Metamorphosis Monday, Furniture Feature Friday, Tutorials, Tips & Tidbits, Rock n Share and Wow Us Wednesdays.