Latest Adventures Into Vintage Reupholstering

A few months ago I wrote about the Great-Grandmother Rocking Chair that was in deplorable condition and the amazing work our local Design Craft company did that transformed it into an amazing and authentic piece of furniture.  At the same time that we had been debating whether or not to take THAT rocker to the dump or to get it repaired and reupholstered, we also had another Grandmother Rocking Chair as well as an overstuffed chair and daveno (sofa) that my parents had bought at Christmas time in 1947.  That furniture was always a part of my childhood no matter where we moved (being Air Force gypsies). We wanted to keep the sofa and the chair as we closed out the parents estate, but really didn't have room for them.  We finally donated the sofa to Goodwill or some other charity, but kept the chair.  The "daveno" was a style of sofa that had a blanket storage compartment under the seat.  We would lift up the seat part and raise it up until it "clicked."  At that point the seat and the back of the sofa would both lie down flat and provide a bed  for sleeping.  I don't remember the fabric on the chair ever being anything but brown but I knew that at some point my folks had had it reupholstered from whatever the original color had been. 

My baby brother sitting in the overstuffed chair  when we lived in Biloxi, Mississippi in 1966. 

Is that kid cute or what!!

I came across one of my mother's letters to her mother-in-law Susan and her brother and sister in law, Carl and Mary both of whom lived at home as they were not yet married.  Mary would be married to LeRoy in six months and Carl would marry Shirley a year after that.. 

 Box 724

Troutdale, Oregon

2 Jan 1948

Dearest Mother, Dad, Carl & Mary,

First of all, we wish to thank you all for the lovely Christmas present. We haven’t decided what to get for it.  We got a lovely Free-Westinghouse Sewing machine just a few days before Christmas. It was from the Wedding present Money you were so wonderful to give us.  It sure is a lovely sewing machine. .  .  .  . 

.   .   .   .   . Then for Christmas we got each other a daveno and chair.  I gave Bob the chair and he gave me the daveno.  It sure makes the living room look nice.  It is a dark wine and is awfully pretty

We received some lovely gifts for Christmas.  Mother and Dad gave us a nice toaster.  Bruce gave us a punch bowl and cups. It is beautiful. Marolyn and LaVonne gave us a plastic tablecloth and it is so pretty – peach and white.  Aunt Atha and Uncle George sent us a lovely luncheon cloth and napkins.  Letha and Ralph sent us a picture of Little Rickey. He certainly is a darling.

Was the Christmas season well and prosperous to you folks?  I do hope you received many lovely gifts.  We are waiting to hear from you. Do wish we could see you.  We have enough room. Must sign off. God Bless and Keep You.

                                    Love,                                               

                                            Bob and Bernadine

At the time I read this letter -- after we had already chosen the new fabric -- I had not known that the original color  had been a "dark wine color."  We had taken a photo of the fabric sample we had chosen.  Coincidence or a little prodding from my late mother?

You can't get much more "dark wine color" than Burgundy!

After we got this chair reupholstered we REALLY wished that we had also kept the daveno, but "no use crying over spilled milk" as they say.  At the time we had the chair reupholstered we asked the owners of Design Craft about having an ottoman added to the project. The custom designed ottoman was a bit pricy but we could not be happier with the outcome! 

 The total finished project

 Refinished woodwork above and below

 Detail on the ottoman above and below.

Matches beautifully!

Our last project (OK, aside from recovering the dining room chairs) was redoing my maternal grandmother's rocking chair. The rocking chair was broken somewhere in the frame and anyone who sat in it found themselves listing to port.  The white or cream upholstery had faded and grimed over the years.  But it had sentimental value.  We are such suckers for sentiment! 

 Here is Grandma's rocking chair sitting in front of the Design Craft shop entrance.



 Close up of wood arms.

 This time we chose a fanciful fabric that we fell in love with and hoped would work well.  It is actually rather hard to get the fabric to reveal the true blue tones because for some reason the fabric in the photos usually appear grayed and somewhat washed out.  There are gray tones in the fabric but to the natural eye the blue is dominant.  To the camera eye, the grays are apparently more pronounced. 

 This is probably the truest color.

 While this photo is somewhat grayed, it shows the subtle whimsical animals scattered throughout the fabric .  Not  noticeable on a quick perusal, they "magically" appear.

The chair still had the tag attached.  It was either manufactured in 1915 or 1925. Hard to read. Apparently in its day the FS Harmmon Mfg in Tacoma, Washington did a great deal of furniture business. 

 

In either possible date, my grandmother was only15 or 25 years old when the rocker was produced and if it could talk could likely give descriptions of several homes.  Grandma, Grandpa and five of their six children moved to Oregon in about 1943 or 44.  Mom traveled with them shortly before her marriage to Dad in Louisiana in summer of 1944.   Her youngest sister was then still just a "twinkle in Grandpa's eyes" while they were traveling across country, but by the time of Mom's wedding my aunt was a regular little "bun in the oven."  Mom was 22 years older than her baby sister. 

We are happy to be done with reupholstering furniture but know that each of these should last the rest of our lifetimes at least. It is nice to rock in the arms of a chair that has rocked many children and grandchildren over the years.  And it is also very comforting to still have the chair of my childhood, almost restored to its newness on Christmas 1947.

Grandmother's Rocking Chair

After my parent's passed away and we had to clear out their house, we found in the basement an old platform rocking chair. It had come from my grandmother's estate, hauled from Wisconsin to Oregon.  While my folks likely planned to get it redone, they never did so.  It was in total and complete disrepair.  The fabric was torn, the grass-looking stuffing was disintegrated and it was covered with dirt and even bird poop.  It also had visible rat gnawing on both arms which did not surprise me as my loving, but eccentric, grandmother did not believe in killing any living thing, including rats and mice.

My brother said he didn't want to haul it back to New Hampshire.  I already thought I had enough stuff, but  I was too sentimental to throw it away.  We figured we would take it to the dump, but I kept setting it aside.  When the very last day came, I still couldn't bear to throw it away and stored it for a couple of months in the garage of my very loving and tolerant aunt's home.  After several months we finally drove down to Portland and packed it in the van. I couldn't believe that I was taking it home, but also couldn't quite bring myself to toss it either.  [Sentimentality can not only be costly, but it also takes up a lot of space.  Ask me sometime about the piano we shipped 200 miles and which then required taking the doors and door frame off both the garage entry and the laundry room in order to get it in the rec room.  I do not play the piano, although my folks bought this piano (used) so that I could take lessons when I was 7 or so.   Yes, that is a milk can in that photo.]] 

But back to the chair.  So one day I realized it was time to fish or cut bait so to speak; we needed to either get it fixed and reupholstered or play taps and send it to its final resting place.  I went on line and discovered -- Design Craft Upholstery, a local company that specializes in reupholstering furniture of all eras. I called them and made an appointment to bring the remains of the chair over.  So I dragged the visible skeleton and diseased hanging tissue of the chair over to get it diagnosed.

Amazingly enough, for the right amount of green ($), I was told it could be restored to its former glory. So we chose new upholstery, made a down payment and committed ourselves to bigger bucks.  We left it there to be torn apart,  refinished (wood portions) and then rebuilt using the original springs and as much of the original structure as possible.  The company subs out the refinishing.

We took the chair in on August 15th with an estimated return of three months.  That estimate would be sometime around Thanksgiving.  Two weeks later my husband fell off his ladder while working and his income disappeared for the same time period.  So we were not at all unhappy to wait  to get our "your chair is finished" call on January 15, 2015.  So it was five months but well worth the wait!  Allan and Shelly and their company did a great job!

What a change!  Wouldn't grandma and/or great-grandma be surprised!  The rebuilt chair is stuffed with flax and hogs hair as it was when new.  We appreciate that the chair is as authentic as it can be!.

Close up of the fabric.

Gnaw marks are gone!

Platform springs

Wooden wheels.

Chair rocks very well and is quite comfortable.  Reading on the internet, it appears that platform rockers were invented around 1880 because they wouldn't "move" around on wooden floors while rocking.  We don't know if this originally belonged to Grandma Susan, Great Grandma Ella Jane or maybe even Great Grand Aunt Nellie (Richardson) Thompson.  If only this chair could talk, we could find out so much! A loving link to Spring Brook Farm.

 

Received comment:  A cousin's wife wrote " [Cousin who lived for some time with my Grandmother] said the gnaw marks were from squirrels.  Aunt Susan saved bags of hickory nuts on the second floor so the squirrels got in to get the nuts. These squirrels kept most of the rats and mice away. He remembers the chair but not its history."