before & after: the Victorian throne

The Victorian throne chair was a collaborative effort between myself and Urban Threads as part of their Lab series.  Urban Threads knows embroidery, I know upholstery, and together we created an awe-inspiring chair!  You may have already seen a look at the chair here, when I announced (okay, more like jumped up and down and screamed in excitement) that we were very honored to have our chair featured on Design*Sponge as part of their before and after series. 

Without further ado, I present to you the Victorian throne...

after:

before:

We found this (very) large throne of a chair on craigslist.  The chair is Eastlake Victorian style and dates circa 1890's.  The lady I purchased it from shared with me that the chair had previously resided in a beautiful Victorian mansion in the historic district of St. Paul.  Wow.  I wish I could have seen the rest of the house.  I'm a sucker for antiques and old homes.  But back to the chair.  It had great bones and beautiful detailed woodwork, but we wanted to update it into the 21st century (think modern and bright). 

So I stripped off the old upholstery

and painted the chair white!

In the meantime, a team at Urban Threads was busy creating and embroidering large designs to be used on the new upholstery.  All of the designs and patterns used on the chair are available to purchase as a part of their Mendhika collection, so you can recreate this same look on your own chair if you wish.  A special, very thick thread call Burmilana was used in the embroidery for this chair.  Burmilana is yarn like thread that offers beautiful raised textured effects which gives the embroidery a wonderful, old world folk feel.

With the newly embroidered fabric complete I was able to get to work upholstering the chair.

The result is a throne fit for a modern king (or queen).  What was previously a dark and rather clunky chair has been brightened up into a bold and modern piece. 

Who would have thought to use machine embroidered upholstery!?!

Many many thanks to the lovely Niamh of Urban Threads for inviting me to be a part of this collaborative project. Also many thanks to amazing photographer Patrick Kelley for the beautiful after shots of the chair that he pulled together in a single afternoon.

linking up at:

Design*Sponge before and after feature!!

I'm elated, speechless, excited and just all around happy to share that one of my latest projects has been exclusively featured in the Before & After series of Design*Sponge!  Yes, Design*Sponge!! :)

This chair was a collaborative project with Urban Threads, a local embroidering company.

Here's a link - http://www.designsponge.com/2012/07/before-after-upholstered-chair-redo.html
Go check it out, now!

Thanks for getting excited with me!  I promise I will share all of the details of this collaborative chair project with you in a few days.

One more happy face first though...  :)  And a BIG thank you to Niamh of Urban Threads for asking me to share in this awesome collaborative project!

pair of Victorian balloon back chairs

I scored these beauties on "Small Business Saturday" (click here to learn more about Small Business Saturday) from a shop near my house.  I always wanted a Victorian balloon back chair, so I was super happy when I found not one but two of them!! :)  I'm still working on dating them, but I think the chairs are from about the turn of the century.

The back of the chairs have a hand carved grapes and leaf design.  But don't let their delicate design fool you, these chairs are super sturdy.

I love the curvature of the backs.  So gorgeous!

The upholstery on the seats sport a handmade needlepoint floral design.

I'm going to wait awhile before I begin working on these chairs.  My plan is to refinish the wood and find the perfect elegant fabric for the seats.  I can't wait!