Ethen Allen Furniture – Reupholster

By Frank Parker

This American company was founded in 1932 by two brothers-in-law starting business as a homewares manufacturer. In 1936 they purchased a bankrupt high-end furniture manufacturer in Vermont and adopted the name Ethan Allen in 1939.

Ethan Allen now a public company and has four manufacturing plants in the USA and one in Mexico with retail outlets across the USA and Canada. Although the company had suffered a severe decline in business over the last few decades the share price is now rebounding with the strong public sentiment towards supporting home grown products and businesses.

A couple were referred to us to have their two Ethan Allen ‘Restocrat Recliners’ re-upholstered. They purchased these recliner chairs in the mid 70’s while living in the U.S. Their present home still reflected the architecture and furnishings from the 70’s so it was the preferable option.

These recliner chairs were stripped back to the bare frames and the mechanisms were removed. The quality of the mechanisms were outstanding, we just cleaned them up with the timber frames only requiring minor repairs. The frames were re-sprung and new cushioning was fabricated from premium foam and encased with bonded polyester fibre. The fabric selected by our client was a 70’s pin stripe velvet which was a prefect replacement.

What could we say, these recliner chairs looked like they had just been purchased from an Ethan Allen store forty five years ago! However the important thing was that our clients just loved their rejuvenated recliner chairs.

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