The story of a chaise

Some time ago, I acquired a chaise that was looking very sorry for itself. It came (as so many of my pieces do) from someone who had planned to do something with it, but had never got that far.

Very sorry for itself

It looked very sad. Like Corduroy the bear, it even had a missing button. More than one, in fact.

Missing more than one button

Clearly, it needed some TLC. Fortunately, it had come to the right place.

I toyed with ideas. Was I going to do something outrageous? Was I going to go for an upmarket, elegant look?

As most upcyclers will tell you, the first step is to see what you've got, by stripping off the outer layers.When I took off the fabric, it became clear that this was going to be much more than just a re-cover job: the webbing was perished and friable. I could literally crumble it between finger and thumb. Not what you want from the very thing that is going to support your weight!

The webbing was perished

The foam was okay-ish, but I thought that I might as well replace it too, while I was at it.

The foam was okay-ish

The finish on the frame was pretty badly damaged. So I sanded that back to see whether it might be worth going the clear wax route. But the wood, while good quality, was such a mishmash of colours, that I thought it would be better to finish it with a coat of something-or-other.

Such a mishmash of colours

By now, I was leaning toward the more elegant end of the scale, so I opted for black ash. I chose an exterior wood treatment finish, simply because it would be more durable.

First coat of black ash going on

Then I replaced the webbing, and the foam, adding a layer of new wadding (made from recycled fabrics).

New foam and webbing

And of course, I covered it all with a layer of flame retardant calico. Because safety!

Flame retardant calico

Because mustard yellows are so on trend at the moment, and look so great with black, I had subconsciously found myself gravitating that way on my (many) visits to my favourite fabric shop. And because I wanted that luxury look, I had to go with velvet.

I had to go with velvet

But I wanted to add a touch of mischief or levity or quirkiness or something. After all, why be ordinary? I had decided to use buttons only on the back of the chaise. I don't know about you, but I don't find it comfortable to sit on buttons. I decided these were going to be a tad outrageous. I went with covered buttons, for which I used a bright, floral fabric, cutting the covers from different sections of the fabric to make sure no two were the same.

Covered buttons

I also decided to replace the screw cover cap/plug doohickeys (see how the correct terminology just trips from my fingers?) with more of the covered buttons.

More covered buttons

Of course, I covered the staples with some lovely trim.

Et voila. Now for sale for £450.