We have continued working but due to family shielding and commitments, we’ve not been at full capacity but realise we’re lucky that we’ve been keeping safe and relatively sane. Be aware though that it may take longer to reply to enquiries either via phone or email.

We would like to share something a bit different that we’ve worked on and that’s a Land Rover Defender conversion carried out by the very talented Birdboxhouse.com. We are just blown away by the quality of the conversion skills and we’ve been happy to provide the upholstery for it.

The interior cushions have been covered in a marine style fabric to help with the rugged use and please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you’re looking for a conversion or looking to refresh any camper cushions.

Land Rover Defender Interior

Upholstery Detail

Land Rover Defender Detail

Land Rover Defender Cushion

Land Rover Defender Conversion

We haven’t seen anything quite like them before and believe they were purchased from Arding & Hobbs department store at Clapham junction during the late 50s/ early 60s.

They are completely original although missing their seat cushions and have never been reupholstered. They have a metal frame but with Pirelli webbing on the seat and back, held in place with metal clips and brackets. The arms have a layer of horsehair and foam has been used before the top cover which has been secured in place by pop on rivets similar to ones found on a classic car tonneau cover. The material used to cover the metal frame on the inside arms is black and similar to again a classic car door panel – one can see it under the horsehair in one of the pictures. The back cushions are also filled with horsehair and the legs are wood but a typical mid century shape.  Some aspects of their design echo Ernest Race and his Flamingo chair and if anyone can shed some light on these, it would be greatly appreciated. We don’t want to start restoring them just yet in case they are something special. That and they look as if they’ll be a nightmare to do…laughing face.

In the words of Toyah….it’s a mystery.

Clips holding top fabric cover in place

Back of chair

Rivets holding back cushion in place

Pirelli Webbing held in place with rivets

Underneath chair, no makers mark

Unusual metal clips holding webbing in place.

Arms with thin layer of horsehair

Mystery mid century chairs

Pirelli webbing on the back but not as wide as Ercol webbing

Side View

Usually with Ercol furniture, the webbing is held either with dowels and studs or with standard metal clips that drop into a recess within the frame.

Rare Ercol Armchair

Standard Dowel Holes

At the rear of the frame there were holes that usually we would expect to go right through and then the webbing would be held in place with the webbing wrapped around a dowel and then secured using metal studs (similar process to stud work on leather work). However, on this chair the holes did not go right though!

No holes

We decided to give Ercol a call as on closer inspection of the clips, the rear metal ones were different to the standard ones and had teeth on the outside and none of our upholstery suppliers had heard of them. Unfortunately, Ercol were unable to tell us the chair model or shed any light on sourcing the clips so we had to reuse the existing ones.

Unusual Ercol clips with teeth.

The clips were then attached to the webbing in a certain way and pushed back into the holes at the rear of the frame. The webbing is then held in place by metal teeth on the clip “grabbing” the wood when sitting and the front webbing being attached with standard clips dropped vertically into the frame.

New Pirelli Webbing

We’ve  looked in all the Ercol catalogues and believe it is some form of “Lounge” Chair or “Easy” Chair from the 1980s or 1990s but if anyone could let us know the model number, we would be grateful for reference purposes. We expect that Ercol didn’t use this particular method for webbing for very long as the webbing straps can be pulled out quite easily!

It’s been quite an eventful few months but finally the gang are back together again. Some of us (Dave and Kay) stayed close and kept the ship on the right course whereas some lucky person went on her “gap year”. It wasn’t quite a gap year but Cally spent the last part of 2019 exploring Australia and New Zealand.

Now we’re halfway through January, we thought we would share a snapshot of our festive fun before the hard work begins. It wasn’t all doom and gloom for those left manning the phones back at the workshop, we made some special memories with our nearest and dearest too.

Thank you all for your business in 2019 and we look forward to exciting opportunities in 2020. Cally, Dave & Kay xxx

Cally and hubby Mike enjoying Hamilton Island to celebrate their Anniversary

Dave and his family in Lapland – Snow, Huskies and Northern Lights.

Kay and her big kids doing touristy things in London and enjoying the Dorset Jurassic coast.

We don’t mind this indecision as fashions change. We have a huge quantity of fabric in the workshop that is testament to this….we thought it would look great on a chair, only when we actually got round to do it, we had found a far more gorgeous fabric that would look even more perfect. The problem with this indecision, is that we just don’t have the capacity.

A few years ago we had a space in a vintage sales room and to keep our stock up to date and constantly turning round, we decided we needed to double our space in order to have somewhere to store items. We had already filled our own garages at home, half the workshop and our offsite storage facility so you could see our predicament. We took on another unit next to our workshop. Now these units are not tiny, around 75 square metres…each… Fast forward a few years and the constant pressure of making sure the shop front was kept current was too much to balance with other commitments. Basically we got fed up with spending every Friday night at the auction sourcing new stock….rock n roll. Alas, we said goodbye to our next door unit and had a massive clear out. Oh boy…if you have space, you easily fill it and it was a mammoth task….only we didn’t really clear it out….we crammed every piece we could into the workshop, home and off site storage.

Unfortunately, we are now in the process of having a further clear out and have some great chairs that need to go. If you are after an upholstery project or would like us to reupholster them in your choice of fabric then let us know.

Antique Elbow Chair

Pair of Art Deco Utility 1930s/40s Bentwood Banana Rocking Chairs

Excellent quality Victorian nursing chair

Victorian Library Chair

Antique Armchair

Edwardian Chaise Longue

Vintage Blue Button Back Tub Chair

Antique small Chair

August has taken us to the glorious Med where on a whistle stop tour of Corsica we found ourselves visiting Napoleon’s House…You can take the Upholsterer out of the workshop…

Having visited the Warner Textile Archive in Essex it was great to see archive pieces of wallpaper, fabrics  and trim in the house.

It was also fabulous to see some of the furniture too which was quite unexpected.

Having been trained in The British traditional way of Upholstery, it is on our list to work with a traditional French Upholsterer at some point as just look at those straight lines of the edge roll on the seats.

We would like to point out that it was a different “Kay” that fell from the back of a cruise ship.

It’s called a Campaign Chair as it’s made to be folded up and carried by travelling armies. We believe this one dates from around the early 20th century due to its sprung “built in” seat cushion, although we’re not sure if this one saw much military action. However, we could see it taking pride of place in a garden, watching a croquet match, quaffing a generous G&T.

The fabric, which the client provided, was used on the wrong side to show off the stunning silver thread running through it. The back comprised of two pieces sandwiched together and sewn, in order to give a clean finish from behind. Chrome decorative nails were then attached down the sides and the neck rest was stab stitched to provide definition.

Further pictures of the chair can be found under the portfolio section.

We all come in different shapes and sizes and we may be wearing scruffy jeans and a dog haired covered fleece, we may drive an old car but then we work in a farm building with zero heat, no running water and a dirt track leading up to it, we don’t particularly want to get our decent clothes and car dirty. We can get a Chesterfield in the workhorse car, not so the expensive classic convertible sitting in the garage. We do have those posh outfits and handbags hiding in our closet…and that’s just Dave…Boom Boom.

This month though we tried our hardest to get an account, a trade account with a fabric supplier. Not a massive high street account, just an independent family run fabric house. Our client really loved their designs but they only wanted a small amount. Now we pestered this company but for whatever reason their sales rep didn’t even bother to pick up the phone. As Julia Roberts states in Pretty Woman. “Big Mistake”.

The bigger picture means that not only are we part of a collective of upholsterers but that means our client base isn’t just us, it’s all of us. We work with restorers, interior designers and not least of all, our clients. We also have friends and family and because of this, us and the people we know mix with celebrities, top sports people, winners of Wimbledon, leaders of business, Cheltenham cup winners, directors of media companies and even royalty. There really is only six degrees of separation in our world, if not less.

So if you are that independent fabric business, take a look at your sales rep as our client ending up buying the fabric on eBay and then give us a call…we’ve got a great Chesney Hawkes story.

No wait…in reality this means a muddy track up to the workshop, A workshop that gets so dark by 4pm, we need to fire up lights that would not be out of place on a premiership football pitch and zero heating. All of us at Number 10 like the sun, we should have been born in warmer climes that’s for sure. Whilst the black dog hits most of us from time to time, it seems evermore present on these cold, harsh days, When we feel like this, sometimes its worth reminding ourselves about the positives that surround us. Such as:-

• Autumn brings us the sloe gin, raspberry vodka and other alcoholic beverage delights brewing in a darkened corner waiting for Christmas.
• That crisp blue sky day walking down the beach which is completely empty because the holidaymakers are long gone.
• Never having to do that appraisal which is directly related to our bonus. Ever again.
• Worrying about sweating onto the clients £150 pm fabric.
• There is always a fellow upholsterer with a nightmare job which is far worse than anything we have seen.
• Day trips to see new fabric collections or sample/second sales.
• Daniel Craig in Spectre…or any film for that matter.
• The smell of fireworks and bonfires.
• Workshop Christmas Party

We believe that you can always turn a negative into a positive….so what if you mistakenly bought that roll of wrong size stockinette off a well known auction site – it may not fit around any cushions but it makes a great “Mummy” for Halloween.

We do know the upholsterer that was called to a local farm to see if they wanted any furniture before it went on the bonfire. Even from 50 paces they recognised the Howard and Sons lining and kindly told the friend they would take it off their hands for free. Another colleague at a local evening class witnessed an iron back being ripped out and asked if the owner would mind if they could have a piece of the “original fabric”…. which again was the iconic Howard and Son lining.

So what is it about Howard and Sons armchairs which allow them to achieve such high prices at auction sales ? They were aimed at the top end of the market and  the company displayed their designs at the important exhibitions of the time. We’ve never been lucky enough to work on a specific Howard sofa or chair so we can not comment on the upholstery techniques involved but we have traditionally reupholstered many many Victorian chairs which are just as comfortable and extremely well made. One could argue that other makers that produced chairs for the wealthy middle class market had greater influence and it should be these manufacturers which we should be looking out for at auctions; William Smee & Sons, J. Schoolbred and Company, and C. and R. Light to name a few. Perhaps these offer a great alternative especially as the high prices which Howard and Sons command bring with it the not so genuine sellers on online auction sites.

What is important when buying any antique Victorian chair is that it must be fit for purpose. If it looks great, feels comfortable and you really love it, then this must be the driving force regardless if it is stamped or not. In fact, surely that it has survived over 100 years is testament to the quality…..so rather than purchase that mass produced armchair from the high street retailer go make friends with the local upholsterer. They’ll even throw in a cup of tea.