What the Boss Likes – we got really cool upholstered chairs!

As the title says, we got really cool upholstered chairs.   Some background on this,  my husband’s parents once did upholstery.  And when my mother in law was dying from colon cancer, she asked what we would like.  We got a pair of decrepit chairs that my husband loved because they were so comfortable, and a gold painted mirror, shelf and candle sconces from circa 1970.  The gold set is now at the base of our staircase.

The chairs were in desperate shape 20 years ago, and weren’t getting any better.  But we wanted them to be a nice as possible when we finally shelled out the cash to get them done.   They left clumps of ancient cotton batting, horsehair and decaying bits of fabric everywhere.  There had been this very nice upholstery shop I walked past every day at work, Neil Choquette Fine Upholstery.  They had an old store front that had great glass display windows in front, always filled with such lovely vignettes of what was currently finished.  I always hoped we could get them done there.  Then they vanished.

Years passed…

And finally we had the funds to get them done.  As luck would have it, we read about the long lost upholsterers and found out that they were near-by.  So we contact them.  And couldn’t be happier.   This was not a cheap undertaking.  We got the fabric we wanted, not what was inexpensive.  With all of the insane pleating and buttons and every other upholstery term I don’t know,  it took ten yards of fabric that was $100+/yard, a lovely sculpted velvet that is a deep marine blue, the color of the ocean as seen from the lovely windjammer clipper we vacationed on in Maine a few years back.  The frames, sticky and opaque with decades of Pledge, were stripped and rehabbed by a Mennonite fellow that Neil works with.  I think they are maple and are now a lovely caramel color, gleaming with the deep sheen that good wood has.  Neil thought they were probably 1940s or so.  He did a very clever thing to the chairs. On the seat under the cushion, instead of using just heavy muslin or some such, he used the velvet and reversed the hand so the velvet from the cushion would catch and the cushion wouldn’t always go slipping off.

Feast your eyes.  This pair are as identical as could be made, an incredibly impressive feat.  They are essentially a 50th birthday present for my husband and a 25th wedding anniversary present for the both of us.   Someone will have a great pair of chairs when our estate is dispersed with after we leave this mortal coil.

Of course Muffin had to give her approval.  🙂