Saturday, March 2, 2013

La sedia famosa!

About a month ago I found myself in the attic looking for something, and I came across an old unloved and unwanted dining chair.that used to belong to Lorenzo's nonna. So naturally I claimed it for my own and announced that I was going to reupholster it and make it pretty. I was met with those smiles that say "Sure you are dear, you have fun now", all the while thinking that the chair would be back in the attic in a matter of days.


 Undeterred and excited by the prospect of my new chair (and my new project of procrastination) I went straight to the fabric store and bought the fabric to finish my chair (everything in order right!) then I got to work stripping back the old fabric, straw, string, springs and what seemed like a thousand nails until I was left with a bare wooden frame. From there I spent a good 2 weeks sanding off all of the old stain then re varnishing it a lighter colour.


The next challenge was finding all of the bits and pieces that I needed to finish my chair, and on top of that finding it in Italian when I don't even know what they're called in English. Though slowly, piece by piece I found everything that I needed with the help of Lorenzo's mum (who clearly had more faith in me than the others!).

I lined the base with webbing, stitched in the coils, tied the coils across the top, covered it with hessian, stapled foam around the edges, padded with wadding, covered with foam, covered with more wadding and then finished with the fabric (a completely different one to what I bought that first day incidentally)...





Until today I FINALLY got to this...







No this didn't happen in one day and I wont lie, I didn't figure out how to do it all on my own. This DIY on Design Sponge is incredible and guided me through all of the steps. Unfortunately I didn't take photos of most of the steps, nor are the photos I took of very good quality... But there you have it!
Once I got to a point where it was clear I wasn't going to destroy the chair... and that it probably wasn't going to end up back in the attic, a matching one magically appeared... So now I get to do it all again! :)

2 comments:

  1. Looks great Ebs, a true Italian masterpiece

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  2. Wow great job, look forward to seeing the next one!

    ReplyDelete