When 'project nursery' started a few months ago, there was one thing that was sure - feature chair.
I have a thing for chairs. I kind of collect them. If you've ever made a pile on the curb for your local council rubbish collection day and added an old beat-up chair to the top of it only to find it gone hours later I probably took it. I have pulled over for a few chairs in my time, the old curly metal dressing table chairs with almost disintegrated round padded seats have accounted for quite a few. The restoration job of which was as simple as a good sand, a spray of paint and a trip to Spotlight to select an appropriate (ghastly) faux fur animal print (my taste has thankfully changed since then) with which to recover the round cushioned seat.
A successful and simple restoration job like this and a few others since can leave you feeling a little too confident. And it was, in hindsight, over-confidence and eyes trained to see only potential not problems that led me to buy this three legged, grubby, faded, tufted boudoir chair from a secondhand store in Maitland Mall in 2013 shortly after we moved here...
My sister had a chair similar that she had recently had a quote from an upholsterer for the recovery of and it came back at just over a grand - ha, we scoffed! That was until...
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Determined as ever that of all the chairs I had accumulated with 'unrealised potential' this chair was to be the feature chair of the nursery, I called in the help of Mum (jack of all trades, master of most) who has recovered and restored an impressive array of furniture in her time.
While I lay green with nausea on the couch Mum started the tireless job of deconstruction. Plucking away rusty tack after rusty tack, prying away staple after staple until finally the chair was a blank canvas and a pattern for its recovery had been formed.
Then one night many weeks later after D had skillfully replaced the missing forth leg (completing the structural part of the restoration) D and I found ourselves inspired. Faced with a naked chair, the pattern Mum had made for its recovery and the crispy new duck egg blue and white polka dot fabric, we decided - let's do it!
Now weeks later the chair is complete and I have a new respect for the quote my sister was given from the upholsterer. It was a time consuming project that took much thought, attention to detail and precision, but D and I couldn't be happier with how it turned out and are now looking forward to taking on a chesterfield sometime in the future... the very distant future...
