A while back, I bought a set of four Victorian balloon back dining chairs to restore and sell at Artist Open Houses during the May Festival. I wanted to showcase the amount of work and skill that goes into traditional upholstery but also illustrate how traditional antique furniture can be made to look contemporary and stylish.

This is a shot of one of the chairs before it was stripped back and the stuffing I discovered in the seat. An eclectic mix of the original seaweed & coir stuffing and some more modern bits of what looked like a massacred nylon teddy!

 During

Here are just a few of the layers that go in to building a traditional seat... The final picture shows the different stages of seat stitching.

...its quite tricky finding a way of taking a photo of four dining chairs with stitched seat pads that shows them in all their glory. Here are some of my attempts:

After

So here are two of the finished product, all dressed up in yellow Velvet  with Houles double cord.

These beautifully made frames now have new, traditional seat pads that are built to last and contain sustainable materials, not teddies... You can buy these as a pair of bedroom chairs or as a set of four dining room chairs.