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  • Oliver’s Upholstery

    ByFrank Parker

    Oliver’s Upholstery was founded by Andrew Oliver in the late 1980’s being situated in Perth Western Australia. The business manufactured economically priced upholstered furniture for the WA retail sector. The business grew quickly becoming one of the larger upholstery manufacturers by volume in the State. However about a decade of operation cheap inferior products started coming into Australia from Malaysia and Thailand then flooding in from China.

    With the value area of the local market being displaced with imported furniture Andrew Oliver changed directions renaming the business Oliver’s Re-upholstery focusing on re-upholstery and commercial upholstery.

    Long term clients approached us when renovating their home wanting to have two wing back chairs re-upholstered. These clients resided in a leafy Perth suburb and thought the chairs were rather special but it’s difficult to explain to such clients that their taste in furniture maybe a bit ordinary, especially if they want the chairs re-upholstered in a high quality leather.

    The upholstery was rather tacky so we stripped the chairs back to the bare frames and were rather surprised that the frames were soundly constructed. We sprung the frames, laminated the body work with high density foam padding slightly redesigning the upholstery. The leather was a full-aniline leather from Tasman Tanning and was a pleasure to use as the chairs took shape. Using more traditional labour intensive upholstery techniques paid off as displayed by the finished product.

    Our clients were simply “gob-smacked” with their re-upholstered wing back chairs which just goes to show that you can make a silk purse from a sow’s ear!

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  • Trustyle Furniture

    ByFrank Parker

    Truestyle evolved from a lounge furniture manufacturing business which came into existence as W. E. Young & Co. The business was founded by Bill and Beryl Young who came to WA from Victoria starting the manufacturing business in the late 1950’s originally located in Claverton Street east Perth. In the late 1960’s the business relocated to Osborne Park.  The business was then taken over by several of the employees in the mid 1970’s with Colin Bainbridge running operations. The business then shifted to River road Bayswater to a purpose built factory.

    Trustyle manufactured styles incorporating show-wood frames with the furniture being in the upper middle class for price and quality always being considered good value for money in the industry.

    A client contacted us wishing to have her Trustyle lounge suite and dining chair seats re-upholstered. The Lounge suite was over thirty years old but remained structurally sound. It was originally upholstered in a patterned transfer print which were popular in the late 80’s and early 90’s but she decided to have the furniture re-upholstered in a plain chenille.

    This was a straight forward job, we replaced the elastic webbing laminated new high density arm foam and fabricated new premium foam seat and back cushions encasing them with bonded polyester fibre. The upholstery was also relatively simple and back to original including the buttoning.

    Our client was happy as her favourite piece of furniture was back to new condition and hopefully she will have many years of enjoyable use.

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  • Mid-Century Danish Chairs featuring the EK Easy Chair

    ByFrank Parker

    The ‘EK Easy Chair’ typifies the Danish chairs during the boom period of the 1950’s and 1960’s. This chair was designed by Illum Wikkelso who belongs to the group of famous “mid-century” Danish furniture designers.  

    The chair was manufactured by Niels Eilersen who commenced business in 1895 originally as a wheelwright and coach builder, then motor body-builder and entering into the furniture industry in the mid 1930’s. Niels Eilersen developed the technique of steam bending wood and ply which proved invaluable after the war with the production of bent-wood and spindle styled chairs. During the 50’s and 60’s the company progressed into manufacturing world class furniture and employing famous designers such as Illum Wikkelso to produce the EK Easy Chair.

    We were contacted by a client saying she has two Danish chairs requiring re-upholstering in leather. When arriving at their residence and viewing the chairs we knew they were special having an unimproved value of over $5000 per chair. Our clients specified that they wanted new elastic seat webbing, the sprung cushion inserts replaced with foam/polyester inserts and the cushion covers to be leather.

    We replaced the elastic seat webbing with firm high quality webbing which had previously be replaced by average quality webbing. We then fabricated laminated foam seat cushion inserts with a very firm high density centre core featuring high density softer overlays then encased with bonded polyester fibre. The back cushion inserts were fabricated from the slightly softer grade used in the seat overlays then also encased with bonded polyester fibre. The leather cushion covers were fabricated from a high quality semi-aniline leather being Tasman Tanning “Matisse Black”. The original leather cushions were vandyked however we sewed shaped patches allowing for the fullness created by the buttoning.

    The result was spectacular as the chairs still retained their authentic look but we had fulfilled our client’s wishes by also having the chairs more comfortable for sitting. We also gave the clients back the original sprung cushions for re-sale value if ever required. Two classic chairs now sixty years old and good for another sixty years!

    •   We Were So Happy

      We were so happy with the two black leather chairs you re-upholstered for us.
      Monique
      Shenton Park, WA
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