Friday a customer brought in a wing chair. When I saw this pitiful thing all I could do was sigh. It was a wreck and every joint was loose. The customer knew it was a cheap chair and she also knew she was spending more money than it was worth but it was her mothers and she wanted It done.
So I stripped it down. The first thing I noticed was the front Queen Ann style legs were screw in. As I started stripping fabric off I noticed the joints were held together with staples. As I went along I noticed they did not use glue on any of the joints. After I took all the fabric and padding off I started prying those joints apart. I was surprised to see there were no dowels used to hold the joints together. The only thing holding this chair together was the staples!
So, big decision here. There is only so much I could do considering the price we quoted and the customer didn't expect miracles. I certainly couldn't add dowels to all those joints so I did the next best thing. I took the major joints apart. This entailed prying those long ass staples out. I put it back together using plenty of glue and screws. I glued and screwed the corner blocks and add more blocks in strategic locations and clamped the whole thing together. This alone took 4 hours of valuable time. This morning I removed the clamps and it feels solid.
Rose cut and sewed it yesterday. Thank god its a solid fabric. We made some upgrades on the recovery work also. I started upholstering today and its looking pretty good. I'll post some pics later.
I expect a big ole hug when she comes to pick it up. :)
I know she'll be absolutely thrilled when she sees it.
A few years ago, I recovered a French Provincial type chair for a lady. I personally thought her fabric choice sucked but that's just personal taste. This was when Joe was a very boisterous puppy and also when the contractor from Hell was working downstairs. I was working on an alteration project and I thought Joe was on his pillow napping. I heard a crunching noise and, much to my horror, discovered that Joe had decided to nibble on one of the legs. Damage was minimal but had to be repaired and was out of my comfort level. Contractor happened along and he knew he owed me big time for his lack luster progress on Sew & Sew's expansion/upgrades. He put some wood putty, sanded it and stained the leg, as well as all of the wood surfaces. That chair was looking sharp when the customer came. I told her that I wanted it to look like a brand new piece of furniture. She was beyond thrilled when she saw it. It almost made up for the contractor being a total jerk.
This is the restored chair. I would have left the buttons off but the customer wanted her mothers chair just like it was.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/iERJz51mrayAsCoWA
As nice as the outside looks no one will know the work that went on inside the frame. It's a fairly wide chair or maybe that's just the photo. You might see an ottoman come in for phase two.
SA
Gosh, that chair looks just great! What a terrific job.
Dang Kody. That looks impeccable.
Thanks folks, those front Queen Ann legs are plastic and looked really bad. I lightly sanded them with steel wool and sprayed them with lacquer. They look like new now.