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These chairs were a time capsule.  Not only is their style something straight out of Mad Men, but they had their manufacture date stamped on the inside frame (July 30, 1968, to be exact).  They also had some badly degraded foam inside, so I think this was the first time they had ever been reupholstered.

The client had me replace the old corduroy with a twill in jet black.

Without the crushed pile in the old fabric, the lines of the chair and its spare, three button tufting, the chair once again looked sleak and “mod”.

As I said earlier, the foam was completely degraded.  Forty years will do that to any foam, especially if it has been left in sunlight, in heated areas, or has had a lot of use.  Many people don’t know what “degraded” means…here’s an example:

That rusty mauve powder is what was left of the foam.  Underneath the foam was a mustard lining, so that powder was the only thing giving the chairs any kind of padding before I replaced all of the foam.  But to do that, first I had to strip the chair to its burlap.

Finally, here’s proof that the chairs are from 1968:

Tags: Fabric covered buttons, Finished Projects, mid century modern, Retro, side chairs, Tufting, upholstery . This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011 at 8:22 pm and is filed under Mid Century Modern, Upholstery Projects. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.