A Restored Vintage Parker Knoll Chair

The chair! The chair! I finally finished Natalia's chair!

I was gifted the chair by my parents back in December last year (it belonged to my Mum), sanded it down in February this year, sewed the cushions sometime in April, and *finally* just got around to covering the springs and making the fabric loops to fasten it to the chair back. So it's not exactly my fastest project, but it's certainly one of the most cheerful.

Behold:

So delightfully yellow! So pretty against the turquoise mural and cushions! The fabric is Premier Prints Suzani in yellow slub (the same as our guest bedroom curtains). The cushions are made from the same Designer's Guild Boqueria Turquoise fabric as Natalia's curtains, which are complete but yet to be hung.

The chair is a genuine vintage Parker Knoll chair, so after sanding and oiling it I decided to stay true to the original design and keep the frame completely exposed. Here's a view from the back:

The original chair had three fabric loops sewn onto each cushion, which wrapped around the wooden frame and connected to press-studs sunk into the wood. I replicated these with some spare fabric.

When I sewed the (removeable) cushion covers, I decided to have a crack at making them without piping, partly because the original chair didn't have piping, and partly because I'd used piping for Eva's chair and fancied trying something different. Well, never again will I make a chair cushion cover without piping. Figuring out where to put the seams was almost impossible. I jabbed many, many pins into my fingers in the process. I'm really pleased with how the cushions came out, but ye gods, it was hard work.

Here's the chair sitting happily in Natalia's bedroom - this is the corner diagonally opposite the bedroom door.

And here's a wider shot of the whole mural wall:

Let's take a quick look at the before, during and after:

You can check out more of my furniture projects here. Now I must run and get cracking on our latest project - stripping about twenty layers of ancient paint from our staircase. If I work really, really hard, I might be able to finish a whole entire stair before bedtime!