Dining chairs at Lunga

Last year I was lucky enough to stay at Lunga House on the beautiful west coast of Scotland. The house has some amazing old furniture and the group I was with were given food and lodgings at the house in return for restoring some furniture. As someone was french polishing the 20 seater dining table, a friend and I chose to recover some old dining chairs so that they would all have matching covers around the table.

I soon discovered it wasn't just the material that needed attention - the chair on the right in this photo completely fell apart on me, so here you can see it after I had glued and clamped it up!

Although not every chair was the same style, the matching material made a big difference in giving them a common theme.

Cute Chair

Stupidly I didn't take a photo of this chair before I stripped it back completely (also stupidly I can't figure out how to rotate it on here!),  but it was quite uncomfortable and had an old cover that had become a little grubby. It basically needed freshening up.

 I'm not sure how much this photo will mean to most people but it is the base of the seat once I had removed the top cover (but before I got to the stage of the photo above). As you can see the insides had all torn away from the frame and the springs were poking out, which is why the chair wasn't particularly comfortable. 

The webbing had gone saggy too so I removed everything (see first photo), then rewebbed and attached the springs. I tied the springs down to the frame with strong string so that they would not move around too much, attached a strong spring canvas to cover them, and then reused the original stuffing to shape the seat. I also added new stuffing to plump the seat up and make it more comfy.

I was a bit nervous when putting the top cover on since it was such a light cover (after catching my finger on a tack I did get a spot of blood on a patch and had to remove it), but the client and I were really happy with the end result. The iridescent pattern on the material looks beautiful where it catches the light, and seems to constantly change the look.

Footstool

This footstool was actually found on the street waiting to be collected by the council with some rubbish. 

After painting the base, adding a new foam top and recovering it in some pretty fabric this footstool was as good as new.

Prayer Chair

One of the first projects I undertook, this prayer chair had broken webbing, a huge hole in the seat and a very tatty old cover. This photo shows it when I had stripped it all back and replaced the webbing.

This is the finished chair, with beautiful new material. Unfortunately my photos don't do it justice but I will make sure future finished photos are not taken in my workshop!