Clever Doris: Clever Doris And Her Fine Upholstered Seat

Now whatever I said in previous posts about any found item being the most spectacularly smelliest thing of all time in the history of wombling, please disregard because this piece gets the award for being the smelliest even I've ever encountered.
It's a 1950s cocktail chair. And we all need a cocktail chair in our lives don't we? - for those times we spend partaking of a small cocktail libation of an evening...
This one was purchased for only £15, a fine example and a rare find due to the current popularity of mid century furniture - and especially at such a bargainous price.
I think the odour of wee devalued it somewhat...

Really Really Stained and Well Rank...

Deconstruction: deep breath in and armed with face mask, gloves and pliers I set about stripping the fabric off the piece. It was imperative that I kept the main pieces intact so that I could transfer the pattern shapes onto the new fabric.

Although enormously rancid, once I got into the main body of the piece I discovered, as thought, that the structure was solid and sound. At this stage I thought: "yikes, that's torn it". I did however have a cunning plan in ensuring that I photographed each stage of the deconstruction process.

Even did a drawing/order of works whilst referring to a book in order to work out how to reconstruct it. All very technical and thought through you know...

Reconstruction: after removing the old fabric, tacks and flesh from my hands I decided to cover the exposed wood areas with wadding (actually the innards of a duvet), using a staplegun. This was in order to give the chair a softness so the frame won't eventually poke through the new fabric covering. I kept the original wool/horsehair padding intact. The staplegun I used was the 3rd version of 3 purchases, the first 2 being returned to the shop due to their ineffectiveness/being crap. Tip: "you buy cheap/you buy twice".

I roughly covered the chair in cotton calico, mainly so I could bring it indoors and continue working on it. I couldnt bear being exposed to the original padding any longer.

The chair is comprised of 4 fabric pieces so I cut a new pattern taken from the old fabric.The inner back panel was the first piece to be stretched and stapled onto the outer edges of the frame.

I machine stitched the contrast piping onto the top seat section.

The seat welt/skirt section is simply one long strip of fabric the circumference of the seat which I machine stitched around the edges of the seat top (the piping is sandwiched between the two pieces).

The seam bulk was trimmed and clipped at a 45 degree angle.

The piped covering was stretched over the chair seat section and stapled to the underside frame. A second piece of piping was then stapled around the outer edges of the back section, trimming any remaining bulk in the seams.

At this point I flipped the chair over and repainted the legs in charcoal grey eggshell.

Mr Doris with his oversized needle...

After marking out the button positioning on the back and the seat it was at this point I called upon the services of Mr Doris who, not wanting to be left out of a good manly project, came up with a solution of how to affix them (16 of the blighters) using a ridiculously long needle and cord.

Buttons attached, I could then add the outer back section. I stapled the fabric along the top closely to the piping (right side to right side), flipped it over, and stapled it to the bottom underside frame. I handstitched down the sides, again close to the piping.

The old fingertips by this point were well and truly mashed...