There they were, by the side of the road. Just waiting for the trash truck to come and take them away. There was three of them in various stages of disrepair. Unloved. They were covered in a disintegrating green wool satin stripe with a wool braided cord. And they were gorgeous.
I dragged them, in all of their hand carved glory, into my home before anyone else got to them. Their joints were achy and loose and the springs were sticking out of the bottom. There were strands of dried out horsehair or boar hair (or whatever long dead, hairless creature they used to stuff this thing) hanging out of the torn fabric in tufts. Their feetsies were missing the caps.
They sat around my home for years. They came with me when I moved. They went in and out of mothball smelling storage units. I didn't know WHAT I was going to upholster them with, but I knew it HAD to be beautiful.
Fast forward about ten years. I decided to teach myself how to silk screen and chose the Jolly Roger as my first image. I have this huge vintage fabric collection that I had collected over the years, and I selected my favorite fabric to be my first victim. It's a vintage French hand screen print with about 23 screens (I have some pieces in my
Etsy shop in a few different colorways). It's a gorgeous greenish-blue with beautiful swirls, flowers and birds. Glorious! I screened on the skull and crossbones with intentions of making pillows for my bed. Then it hit me. The chairs! So I got to work.
I'm a self taught upholsterer. I learned from watching Ed and Joe, "
The Furniture Guys" on PBS.
*HORSEHAIR!* I'm also fortunate to have a father who was a plumber and a brother who is a hot rod mechanic, so I'm terribly good with my hands, and have a wicked tool box full of hand me downs and greasy castaways that still work perfectly fine. I also honed my upholstery skillz by reupholstering (only) half of the gray sectional in our living room in red moire, much to the chagrin of my family. But that's a different story.
I won't bore you with the upholstery details, but I can assure you it involved a LOT of upholstery tack nails, some Gorilla Glue and really big c-clamps. Oh, and old woven vinyl lawn chair strapping. The finish on the wood wasn't awful. I gave it a really nice rub down with oil and made sure to mop up whatever was left so as not to grease up the fabric.
I also happen to collect trimmings and tiebacks and cording and such, and had tons of this fabulous French silk gimp in chartreuse. The fabric has no chartreuse in it, but since I'm not at all afraid of contrast, I went ahead and glued it on. This chair was coming out hella sexy, but it was still missing something.
Now being a typical blonde, I'm attracted to (and often hypnotized by) shiny things. I have an unhealthy fixation with Swarovski rhinestones and affix them onto anything and everything that doesn't have a pulse. (This of course was years before I ever heard of vajazzling.) Anywho, since I glue rhinestones on everything else, why should this chair be left out? I put in a huge order with my favorite
Rhinestone Guy consisting of bout 1000 Swarovski flat backs in 20SS and a tub of Gem Tac.
It was a daunting task, methodically gluing these rhinestones on one by one. It was also a painful task, ripping glued rhinestones out of the cats' fur (but don't be sad, it wasn't painful for me). The long long loooong hours were well worth the final product though. The chair came out stunning! This chair gets SO many complements, and it's definitely one of my prized possessions. It's so leather and lace. It's so naughty but nice. It's so librarian by day, dominatrix by night.
I know you're wondering, "Self, does she let anyone sit on it?". Honestly I prefer that no one sit on it, but it IS sitable. It hasn't lost a rhinestone yet, and thankfully survived a cat scratching incident without too much damage.
And the best news of all? There are two more chairs just like it, waiting to be reupholstered! I'm really torn with what to do with them. I refuse to upholster them in the same fabric, or with the same silk screen. I have some really clever ideas for them, but since I haven't finalized my idea for the next chair project, you will just have to wait.
But I'll give you a hint.
Guns and Squirrels.
