chairs

Juggling Chairs

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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.

Jane Garvey & The Chair

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Recently Woman’s Hour asked people to tweet in pictures of what they were doing whilst they were listening.

My delight was pretty unbounded when I sent in a photo of the chair I was upholstering and Jane Garvey, no less, said’ ‘Someone upholstering a chair, I am very impressed by that.’

I was very nearly name-checked by Jane Garvey – it boosted my day no end.

I do realise that upholstery as a hobby is a pretty sure definition of a Sussex housewife, but I would like to say it is harder than you might think.

So, whilst not exactly stretching the grey matter to degree standard, it does require some thought and a lot of help from our teacher.

Most of the chairs I re-upholster get sold ( for a bargain pittance, I may add,) on eBay or Gumtree and the proceeds go towards Syrian refugee appeals.

If we had a retail outlet, I could charge more but then they would have to be shall we say, more perfect.

I am at the slapdash end of upholsterers. I am not sure that my tacks – which won’t be seen until the next upholsterer strips it back – need to be in an absolutely straight line, just by way of a small example.

An upholsterer friend said, usefully, one day,’ If a man on a galloping horse can’t see the problem, there isn’t one.’

I have that very nice chap in mind quite a lot.

But this brings me on to the local tip.

The tip shop is where I get a lot of my chairs – not least since the local auction house moved to smaller premises and no longer has the house clearance stuff that you could pick up for a song – or a last minute bid of not very much.

Anyway, chairs at the tip are usually ugly ducklings, and very cheap ones but they can be transformed with a bit of imagination and fabric.

But the tip and therefore its shop, was threatened with closure. A stupid idea if ever there was one.

It is very well run and very busy, and the nearest ones are about 12 miles away – fly tipping, bring it on.

As far as I gather, it has had a reprieve but the powers that be have come up with the nearly as stupid idea of not opening at the weekends until 11 and closing at 4.

There are queues to get in at the weekend – and that is when it is open at 9.

Anyway, I know all this because I have been haunting the tip lately – being an almost daily visitor – looking for a chair.

In this case not just any old manky small duck, but a button-backed chair.

Previously, I had absolutely refused to countenance anything which needed such an eye for detail, patience and a neat way of working – all skills which I possess in minute quantities.

But I found some fabric.

I am a cheapskate when it comes to fabric and like hunting down bargains and this was a roll of more than three metres reduced from £20 per metre to £1.99.

And, if I may say so myself, I am rather good at fabric choices – doing various bits of the chairs in different fabrics, contrasting piping and all that.

( Should you be at all interested, I have just mastered making piping and now don’t know why I made such a fuss about it.)

Anyway, I found a roll of lovely stuff which I hesitate to describe as pink lest you pull a face and think badly of me – suffice it to say, it is a very interesting shade of pink.

My plan is to do the chair in this pink and make the buttons a sharply contrasting colour – yet to be decided.

But can I find a cheap button-backed chair? No I can’t.

Up until I decided I wanted one, there were hundreds of them at the tip, in auctions across the county, going for nothing on Freecycle, being given away locally etc etc, but now there is a strange dearth.

Button-backed chair owners everywhere seem to have decided, unaccountably, to keep them.

But one day my chair will come and for now, I am on very friendly terms with the men at the tip.

Autumn Rituals

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some of this year’s crop

If you are a housewife in Deepest Sussex, however reluctant, there are some rituals associated with this time of year.

The Aga is back on. Obviously, there was an outbreak of very warm weather immediately after it was ceremoniously re-lit but I resisted attempts to have it turned down or off and today is gratifyingly chilly – and it is currently draped with drying knickers and socks.

Then there is the business of turning nature’s bounty into jars of stuff which can be sold to friends in aid of Syrian refugees – a ritual we started at the beginning of the war so it has some years standing – none of this johnny-come-lately refugee crisis activity.

Our crab apple tree had taken a couple of years off and was looking poorly but this year (after some ministrations) it has rewarded us with a big crop.

Too big infact.

Making crab apple jelly is a time consuming faff which involves having bags of dripping mush scattered around the kitchen for many hours, re-boiling and all that sort of stuff.

My recommendation is that you just don’t bother unless it comes with your job description.

The18 jars do look nice – a very pleasing pink and popular with the punters.

But the garden path is generously littered with more of them which I feel bad about going to waste so something more will have to be done with them.
(In case you are interested, yes there will be some elderberry vinegar and blackberry and apple jam and when I get bored with that, I will do some more interesting pickles.)

There are also clouds of pheasants released ready for the shoot and this year the landowner seems to have let out more than the usual number.

They change over a few weeks from hundreds of little brown jobs into magnificently plumed gorgeous looking birds – well, at least the males do.

They are very dim birds, and when they hear a car coming they seem to feel an overwhelming urge to run across the road or gallop off in-front of the on-coming vehicle.

It is hard work not to run them over, and can add quite a bit to your travelling time along our lanes this time of year.

However, just before Christmas the land-owner will bring a brace over – all cleaned and sorted and ready for a very nice supper.

Then there is the upholstery in aid of Syrian refugees which has also been going for a few years.

A friend and I re-upholster some chairs and sell them on Gumtree or Preloved so, obviously, the idea is to get the chairs and fabric cheap, and make a healthy profit.

Being an aficionado of the local tip shop, I got very excited when I saw a pair of G-Plan dinning chairs.

G-Plan being part of the current ‘Mid-Century, darling’ craze and only costing me a fiver, I was very pleased.

For reasons I won’t bore you with, I have been in contact with a very nice woman who is making a film for Oxfam.

I told her about this find and it turns out she is a G-Plan fan and wants the chairs. She also has the fabric she wants them done in.

Good news you may think, and indeed it is, but I feel a bit cheated – selling them so easily, not getting the chance to chose the fabric ( always the best bit of re-upholstery), makes me feel the ritual is not complete.

So I am on the hunt for some more chairs.

I went to an auction but ended up buying an elm ladder-backed rocking chair which we will keep. ( I do like to rescue old elm chairs because we won’t see the like, as my grandmother used to say.)

I will keep looking but time is not on our side – upholstery takes longer than you might think.

But on the upside, this is a chilly Autumn Sunday and there is Antiques Roadshow on tonight – a ritual I always enjoy.

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