When I was smaller I found an old chair and had it in my bedroom for many years, but one day it succumed to woodworm and fell apart. I couldn’t bear to throw it away and so put it into storage until I could repair it.

I liked how the chair was small, efficient, recined and it’s 30′s Art Decco, almost Arts and Craft in style. Under the cerise upholstery I found a wild, flamboyant designed fabric on a ochre background (which sadly was stained with the secondary upholstery that was once on top).

A couple of years back I apprenticed myself to a local joiner who allowed me the use of his workshop. I resolved to restore the chair and duplicate it as an exercise.

Original and Reproduction Chairs

Having copied the pieces I dissasembled the rest, copied them, replaced the dowels and glued the base of the chair together. The seat and back were too far gone so had to replace them using locally grown Elm and Ash I’d seasoned myself.

I’d always wanted to sit in a house I’d built, in a chair I’d made using materials that had grown around me. I’d seen dead Elm trees standing for many years – the ‘disease’ having killed them off well before they were able to mature to any size. I reasoned that they must have dried quite a bit just standing there off the ground so brought a few in to dry some more.

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Here are some of the pieces being readied for assembly. The wood which has the red colouration I cut from a really old Jarrah railway sleeper which must have been brought over from Western Australia over 100 years ago. I undertsand it’s one of the densest hardwoods out there – it certainly is heavy!

Here we have all the framework finished. I was relieved to find that the seat reclines as smoothly as the original did.

First repro chair frame

I neglected to take many shots during the upholstery stage. I had ‘spring units’ made up to my dimensions, stretched hessian over that, fixing it all down with tacks, cushioned everything with recycled cotton stuffing then stretched calico over all and stapled the edges.

The second reproduction chair I made was Jarrah - Eucalyptus wood, from a railway sleeper. I like the idea that at one point this timber was brought over from Western Australia, used as a sleeper for a hundred years with thousands of trains running over it and was now a chair.

Since Jarrah is  most impervious to water damage, they didn’t bother to impregnate these sleepers with bitumen – I’d hate to have a chair stinking of bitumen!

Jarrah Chair – side panel detail

Above shows the side panels which I took from a slice of the outer part of the sleeper – a part that had some slight water damage which causes the dramatic black stripes. I’d already featured Oak that had fungal damage creating the flame like side panels so it made sense to feature the stripes here.

so, right now all three chairs are at the calico stage. I have the finish fabric for the three but I cannot afford a nylon tipped upholstery hammer, they’re about £50 – anyone want to help me out?

Stuck at this stage:

Awaiting finish fabric