DIY your mouldy old chairs

Now here's a project any of you keen DIYers could take on. TV chairs are possibly the easiest of 'retro' chairs to come by, we've found them on the side of the road, in dumpsters, charity shops, donations on our front verandah and on ebay. All that's needed is your elbows  - sleeves pulled up and grease applied (and your expert sewing skills of course). TV chairs are distinguished by their metal frames and shaped foam backs and (usually) beautiful wooden arms. These two belong to Thea and Sami and were looking very sad..

See that mould, well sand paper is its number one enemy and if you start with a 120 grade (80 is too rough and leaves scratches that take longer to sand out) and work your way up to 600 grade, you'll have wooden arms that sing to you when you obsessively and proudly stroke their smooth finish. Most of these chairs from the 60's and 70's have beautiful wood under their tacky varnish (if the varnish is thick, you may have to paintstrip it first), most are teak, Queensland maple or, as in these, Tasmanian blackwood. Finish it off with a couple of coats of Danish Oil. Try to get one with its cushion covers and base cover in tact then you can make a pattern from the pieces.

We've used Thea and Sami's 'Dotty About Roses' and 'Hydrangea' as the main fabric and 'French Stripe' for the borders and feather-filled lumber pads. It's a deep red printed on a beautiful natural linen. That's my restored Chiswell dining table that is now my conveniently extendable cutting table. Just sew, sew, sew...

The moulded foam backs are still available from most foam supply stores and fit perfectly and give lumber support and neck support for when you doze off in front of the telly.
Thea's taken some lovely photos of these and you can see them on her blog here.

Go on, give it a go!

Don Rex Looks Hot in a Kilt

A few weeks back, Flourish and Blume had a jaunt to our favourite seaside spot where our trusty traveling companion lives when she's not on the move. We were on our way to the pub in the dark through the pouring rain and parked in front of a skip that had some interesting legs sticking out the top of it. The next day when the sky cleared...

One rocker and one TV chair, same arms, same construction, one label - Don Rex (the best things in life are free). I inherited a kilt a couple of years ago that is never going to fit me so I'm keeping the rocker and it's going to wear a kilt (one day soon).

A short time after the few weeks back, we dropped that Cintique lounge suite off and detoured off to Bellingen (my first visit, Katie's first visit goes six generations back) and I spotted this vintage ankle length kilt flouncing its pleats at me. In my opinion, the kilt is the perfect object - it seamlessly combines culture, fine craft work and brilliant design.

The chair was truly stripped this time, the piece of old rag that was tied around the front of the frame was a pair of knickers. A very old pair of knickers... for comfort... maybe not such a perfect object.

the process among the pansies...

Don Rex wears a kilt, buckles and all.

We weren't quite ready to leave our new chair when we'd only just finished it, so it took all the boot and one seat in the back and came with us. Now sitting in Reverse Garbage, hanging with the cool stuff, in Taylor Square waiting for a kilt lover.

Sydney Segue

Flourish and Blume thought they'd have a quick trip to Sydney, especially since our favourite traveling companion invited us for the drive - it's just down the road really (on the iPhone map).


Only a little bit of pollution, only a slight nip in the air, everyone on their iPhones and a hell of an adventure for a couple of country chicks with a chair (I'll get to that later, this is the segue). The best bits: -Graffiti, stencils and a bit of needle craft on a wall in Newtown (I'm sure your iPhone will know which wall). No artist credits I'm sorry, if you hear of who did them get them to tag themselves on Facebook on their iPhone.

-How cool are these? Helacool. They are by Helen Proctor, she was selling them too cheap in Newtown in the bit where they have a little market, right near that wall. You can contact her at this email address: helacool@tpg.com.au

Best of all was the lovely chicks we met up with who offered everything from their beds to their electric blankets - the kind of hospitality that restores a chick's faith in human kindness. We <3 Sydney and the bit just north of it where this house can only go one way...

First Print Press + 100!!

Hey, Flourish and Blume has 100 followers - thank you for joining us! It means a lot when your blogging-on isn't disappearing into the ether and that we can share our enthusiasm with you. And we also got our first bit of press - Home Beautiful magazine pg 34 (below) and figured out how to use our Facebook page. All practically simultaneously (give or take a week!)

Here we are, featuring the chair covered in Umbrella Prints fabric - Grand Hearts in Kimono Red.
We're sorry about that ugly Facebook button on the right, they went and changed it on us and we don't know how to fix it! Give us another week and we may have sorted it out!
Happy winter/summer solstice, may it be auspicious for you too!

'Sitting is Believing'!

These 1970's Cintique chairs have been sitting on our verandah for the last year at the perfect height for us to be seated and undetected by passersby and pop up like meerkats when a car pulled up. As attached as we were to them, we knew that one day they'd transform and leave our little furniture orphanage we call home.

The poor old girls weren't in great shape, nasty dark stain that had gone patchy and even mouldy in places, holes in the rattan and loose legs.

We were unsure if the sanding would ever be finished and the three seater couch went up and down our stairs so many times according to the weather that we developed manly biceps. After many many hours of electric and hand sanding, we finally had that beautiful bare bones structure.

The polishing we love so much, would you look at that grain. And then the rattan... o lordy, what a job but one must be true to the original.

And then a wee jaunt down the motorway to deliver our babies to our dream clients who even had afternoon tea laid out for us, bless. The cintique looked beautiful in their newly refurbished apartment overlooking the ocean.

Fabric is 100% wool from Sustainable Living Fabrics. Colours: 'olive' and 'azalea'.

Hanging with Thea and Sami

We've just returned from a quick nip up to Brisbane with the highlight of our trip being a visit to Thea and Sami 's studio. We had such fun with Thea, we were throwing bolts of fabric around in an excitable frenzy and making a right mess of her pristine studio. Sorry we didn't help you clean up Thea! She even sneaked a pic of us, tape measure and notebook poses ha ha(we really were measuring though!) Thanks so much for having us Thea, we came away truly inspired.

Here's some more photos of the two chairs from the last post using Thea and Sami's 'Marguerite' print on her Dusky Pink linen. SOLD!!

A close-up of the whitewashed teak and neutral linen piping details.

We've used neutral linen for the back as well and nickel tacks for bling.

Thea's taken some photos of two Don Rex chairs of hers that we've nicked off with. We'll keep you posted on what happens to them! We came away with a pressie too - a 'dotty about roses' tea-towel. Katie's going to do something special with it! Thanks Thea :-)

Fit for a Greek Goddess

We picked these babies up from the Tender Centre and wish now that we'd got the other two. Alas, space has become such an issue (we're expecting the 'Hoarders' TV crew to arrive at any minute) and they were in such poor condition that we knew they would be a big job. Here they are in a processional stage of undress from fully clothed on the front lawn to 1st layer off on the front verandah, then stripped to the bone in the backyard. Wish I could be so bold on a hot day but I don't want to frighten the neighbours.

We wanted to do something a bit different with these and got very excited when we came across the Greek Goddess with the mostest, Thea & Sami, her fabulous linen range and her gorgeous hand screenprints (she's also a supreme blogger, you can visit her blog here). So we went with something very femme, pink actually, and asked Thea if she could do some custom printing on it with her beautiful 'Marguerite' design. It arrived in a blink of an eye.

Here she is getting her first fitting. And below, the final result.

We didn't think the yellow tones of Danish Oil on teak would have blended so well with the pink so we lime-washed the wood and then Danish Oiled it and were very happy with the result. We've used neutral linen for the piping, borders of the cushion and back of the chair and nickel tack detailing for a bit of bling. Stay tuned for more photos to come in Elissa's shop, Evoke.

Florence, the Original Style Queen

I mentioned in the last post how this whole upholstery venture started over a conversation about Florence Broadhurst.

Image from www.florencerugs.com.au

Last year while in Sydney for Mardi Gras, we visited Vampt Vintage Design and our eyes boggled out of our heads at their two levels of incredible mid-century furniture. We also noticed a sample folder of Florence Broadhurst fabrics and probably squealed and dribbled. Well, the lovely Dave at Vampt actually offered to give us a lift to Signature Prints, the custodians of Florence's designs, where they still print (by hand) from her original designs. We were given a tour of the warehouse and it was the absolute highlight of our Sydney trip.

Florence was born in 1899 and her life story is an incredible read - a cross-dressing, banjolele playing vaudeville stage star in Shanghai, a couturier in London, a self-proclaimed 'best Australian artist', a trucking company owner and an innovative designer of wallpaper. She started screen-printing wallpaper in the early sixties and was tragically murdered in 1977. Owners of Signature Prints, Helen and David Lennie revived and catalogued Florence's design legacy and have brought her flamboyant prints to international attention.

It seemed appropriate that the first chair I ever bought from the Tender Centre for $10 (and the only chair I owned for a while whilst going through a monastic phase and living in a 7 x 3m shed with an outside cold water tap) had to have a Florence makeover...

In the shed with Zebedee, RIP my big shadow. The poor old chair had a pillow to make the protruding springs bearable and a sari tied around it to improve on its appearance...slightly.

And finally, after eight years, the stripping process begins..

We use a paint stripper called 'Citrostrip' it's non-toxic and biodegradable.
And here's the finished Florence makeover in our lounge-room, needless to say she's for keeps.

We thought we'd enter an interior design competition recently run by InsideOut magazine. We didn't win but we did feature on their website with this chair as one of the 12 standout entries. We didn't want the paint prize anyway! You can see it here.

A Nod to the Old Bloke

First up, we'd like to say a big thank you to Design*Sponge for featuring us on their 'before and after' page. We thought the computer was having a malfunction when we saw the spike in visitors. Hence I think I've had a touch of stage fright.

We've had lots of emails asking us where we learnt our skills and I thought this an opportune time to introduce you the old bloke, Alan, just in case you thought we'd been studying online DIY tutorials or similar. Katie is Alan's gene recipient (family members are reluctant to use the 'f' word, it was the 70's, it was strict catholicism, it was a small country town, etc). Katie and I were chatting about the awesome Florence Broadhurst one day and the subject of upholstery came up, I said I'd love to learn, Katie said her f#*^er was an upholsterer although she hadn't laid eyes on him in 13 years. So she spoke to her cousin who spoke to her mum who spoke to her brother which was Alan and we received a call for the go ahead to visit him just as the two rivers met in the middle of the road outside Katie's house during the last Lismore flood. We took it as an auspicious sign.

Alan is now in his seventies and has been incredible with imparting his knowledge, sharing his workshop and tools and being on hand to answer all our questions and also do a lot of our sewing. Two years on and the rest is history as they say... in the tradition of gene holder to gene recipient.

Our very first chair, that Alan mostly did, we got it for $3 from the tip, it turned out to be a TH Brown chair, made in Adelaide and a very popular mid-century collectable.

Ruby's Royal Red Chair

Little Ruby. the jack russell was the only living being who could sit comfortably in this grand old chair that belonged her great grandfather (on the human side of the family tree).

It's most recent refurb seemed to be from the 70's - striped poo-gold velvet. But the stuffing, oh lordy, it was like a bio-hazard ready to unleash the plague on us. Katie put her hand in that (hell) hole and pulled out spring after spring after spring...

We've found some wierd and gross stuff in the back of chairs but never found a signature before. It's  signed 'J. Wilson Oct 1913' (wonder what he died of?). Image on the right shows the start of the tedious  wood cleaning process, but its always a joy when the wood grain starts to show itself through 100 years or more of grime and dead skin cells (apparently).

16 springs no less, all sanded and oiled - the lengths we go to! 

Now would you look at that! The fabric is 100 percent wool (ecowool) from Sustainable Living Fabrics (I love and admire this company) the colour is 'Poppy'. The finished details of wood work and tacks here on your right, take note of that tacking folks, no staples and hot-glued brocade here thanks, each one hammered in. Ruby, darlin', on your bed!