If you are a hobby upholsterer, you have a house with absolutely no shortage of chairs. And, at the moment we have what could charitably be called a glut. 

One came useful when we had to create an Oxfam window display for Charle’s coronation, of course we did.

Those who know me well, will instantly realise this was not a display I had been planning for months, looking forward to eagerly, putting even a bit of my heart and soul into, but there you go, it has to be done.

I had a chair – thrown in for free when I bought some others to seat our extended Christmas lunch numbers.

And I thought it could pass for a bit regal. I decided to recover the seat with some tree fabric as a nod to environmental credentials.

And I nipped up the road to one of those shops which sell everything as long as it came from China, and bought a blow up crown. 

I have to say, the design wasn’t great and it took for ever to even semi-inflate and deflated itself before Charles had made it back to Buck House.

Still, it’s the thought that counts.

Using red, white and blue china and books, I thought I had created something which would pass muster in a restrained kind of a way – but other volunteers had other ideas and once my back was turned, the table was festooned in flags and pictures of Charles and all sorts.

I’m planning on re-doing the seat so that it is more William Morris (see below) and less Charles III in the hope that too will find somewhere else to live. What do you think?

(This is nothing do with with chairs but is a small diversion in Oxfam serendipity.

As I was assembling the display, another volunteer called in with a shoe box. She had been at her U3A antiques course in a local pub when the landlady came over with said shoe box.

Apparently it was stuff left behind, unclaimed lost property and she wanted to give it to a charity shop. 

Our volunteer bagged it for Oxfam and on opening it we found a set of Queen Elizabeth coronation spoons and George VI coronation cake forks. 

The spoons sold before I had time to nip upstairs and take a photo of them so you will just have to imagine.)

Anyway, back to chairs.

Not so long ago someone donated a bag full of Sanderson and Liberty fabric from the revival days of William Morris patterns – I am thinking the 1980s country house look.

I thought I would start collecting books with covers which were arts and crafts movement and, at a pinch are nouveau.

Now I know William Morris was not art nouveau and I know that arts and crafts was a very different kind of movement, but us Oxfam book sorters have to make do with what we have and be a bit lateral now and then…

At much the same time someone in the village contacted about some chairs she had inherited/been landed with when her neighbour died.

She was very keen for them not to end up in the tip so I said I would take them and see what I could do.

One was a simple, small, low chair which needed something better than the Draylon stretch cover with large purple flowers. Underneath, it had that raised scratchy fabric that I remember from a great aunt’s house.

It was not a thing of loveliness inside or out so it needed properly re-doing, from bottom to top.

Anyway rootling through the donated fabric I found a piece of Honeysuckle Minor which I thought would do nicely.

And it did.

So, the plan is to have the chair on the table with the lengths of other fabrics and the books and to see if the book-buying public of Petersfield have nostalgia for the 1980s or even the 1850s.

Meanwhile, I had listed it for sale and, sweet though it is, I was surprised to have someone wanting to buy it the next day.

Luckily, being a nice person, she agreed to have (now) her chair in the Oxfam window for a week.

In fact she seemed rather chuffed.

A couple of months ago, rootling around in the Red cross shop, I found some GPlan dining chairs and known the mid-century stuff is popular, I bought them and thought I would make a bit of a profit in doing them up and selling them.

After trying the patience of the fixers and tinkerers at our monthly Repair Cafe, and all four were sound and fixed, I set about the upholstery.

Then my Best Beloved took a fancy to them and suggested we got rid of our in-use chairs (also reupholstered by me and made sound by someone else.)

I was not hopeful that they would sell – being brown furniture which is certainly not all the rage.

So, imagine my surprise when I had barely time to put the kettle on after pressing the button to get them listed online, when there was a ping and someone who had the right period of house said, yes please.

And she was really pleased with them in her dining room.

But, by contrast, this nice mid-century Habitat chair was not sold when I was pretty sure it would. And is now getting in the way in the kitchen – not one the BB wants to adopt.

But, among the ‘inherited’ chairs I have now ‘inherited’ is a set of dining chairs which I really like.

They need fixing, hello Repair Cafe, and then de-varnishing and then re-upholstering by which time – someway off – I am rather hoping the BB will take to them and then I can start looking for a new home for the GPlan ones.

Such is the life of the hobby upholsterer.