Reupholster to Modernise

By Frank Parker

Clients approached us as they had shifted from an older traditional styled house into a new modern mid-century styled home located in the Perth hills. They had a much loved traditional Torrance & McKenna lounge suite consisting of 2 x wing back chairs and a low back 4 seater settee. They wanted to retain this lounge furniture but re-upholster it to suit their new home.

The most important aspect of this process is to select an appropriate fabric for the re-upholstery process. Our clients had two issues to consider, the upholstery fabric selected had to suit their existing lounge furniture while looking in place in a new mid-century styled home. The upholstery fabric selected fulfilled the criteria being an abstract floral design with the blue and autumn tones looking effective on the polished concrete floor and picking up the tones of the timber cabinetry.

This job was a complete re-build so we removed all the existing upholstery. The frame was re-webbed with heavy weight jute webbing and the coil springs laced into place then the sprung edges constructed. New high density foam padding was laminated to the frame bodies with the upholstery back to original including lined and padded outside arms and backs. The cushion inserts were fabricated using premium foam and then encased with bonded polyester fibre. The cushions were upholstered back to the original finish being boxed piped seats and centre piped back and arm cushions.

The result spoke for its self and our clients were ecstatic when their re-upholstered furniture was delivered. This is great example of up-cycling fine furniture which was purchased new 45 years ago and is now good for another 45 years.

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