Hot Summer Blues

This pair of solid European designed extra large chairs with nice deep seating depth & horse hair & natural cotton throughout.

 Time to pull lots of tacks out of these old timers.

Real nice accent to have these extra heavy chairs on wheels.

I redrilled the pilot holes & epoxied all 8 legs for reinforcement for many years to come.

 The Webbing on the base needs replacement.

The nosing was so shy because of shy springs across the front rail.

 The line is nice & proud now.

 The first of many applications on the spring front nosing.

With lots of hand sewing.

Now that the base is done.  Time to rework the arms & inside backs.

Fresh new cotton throughout.

 The arm tops are kept straight by layering quarter coats of cotton on top of each other.

 Half coats of cotton placed between the new lining & the finish fabric (not shown).

Flat, crisp & the same.

 It's important to set the welting line shy on the arm fronts.

If they are set proud, wear will become a problem.

 Redesigned fronts.

 European cuts on the inside.

Crisp and clean.

 Time to knock the outsides.

The outside arms backed & lined with a thin coat of cotton.

 Mirror pleats on the back of the arms.

 16 skirt pieces cut backed & lined.

 80/20 feathers & down inserts.

With 3 compartments.

 This nice soft blue fabric is such a great fabric. 

Tailored up on these custom pieces, what a nice combination.

 These will join the european sofa of the same design, for one great setting area.

Thanks for looking!

XL European Sofa Restoration

This custom made sofa was probably created by someone with european upholstery experience.  With horse hair throughout with extensive hand sewing.  The frame is very heavy & built "beefed" up.
The original tailoring of the stuffings needs some improvements to get this piece to stand up.
This piece just barely fit through the door of my shop.
And on delivery the shop door need to come off. 19 years here & I think I might have taken the door off once before.

That doesn't happen often.
And a very impressive 38 inches deep & 35 inches in height.

The original creator used one inch ring nails abundantly when building up the base webbing.

I got them all removed so as to attach the new base webbing.

With the impressive 1 inch wide front rail,  the front wire spring edge was set back off of the front wooden rail edge.

I replaced ten coil springs with the new coils reaching over the rail where they belong.

Also added additional springs for proper resistance.

Now that the spring front is right it's time for another layer of spring twine.

Knotted at every spring crossing throughout the 60 coil springs.

The first of many lines of hand sewing across the base.

A very seldom seen design of the spring front base & arm front.

Horse hair is amazing.  I have restored pieces hundreds of years old & the horse hair never deteriorates at all.

Natures best.

The stuffings & old lining sure need to go.
The arms & inside back support systems were created beyond criticism with many decades of life left in them. With a good inspection & tightening up the top stuffings with new lining, they are good to go.

I did a lot of "bettering" of the horse hair before beginning the coats.

The arm tops need extra attention as to keep the top crisp & strait.

Oh yes, beautiful natural cotton to start.

 Need a good clean intersection here.

The same with the inside back.

Lining is so important to get the job done right.

Now it's time for the upholstery finish fabric.

What great weight to this fabric.
Thick & soft.

I gotta make the 15 yards I requested work.

Planning ahead with all the numbers at hand makes for no waste.

The back support beams are right where the piping runs it's course.

I drilled the holes to secure the welting with proper tension.

And of course the outsides backed & lined.

These custom leg caps are exceptional.

One leg was repaired by dowel replacement, redrilling the shaft hole & two part epoxy adhesive.

The skirt sure needs to dress this piece back up.

Backed, lined & balanced.

Generously stuffed feather & down seat cushions.

With 3 compartments in each cushion.

Upholstery is one of the most inexact trades around.

There's lots of head scratching getting the seat cushions correct.

Note the full corners.

Strait & squared away.

All wrapped up ready to serve.

Thanks for looking

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