Today, Ming, his fiancé, Benita, and I met with Elva and Craig, a brother and sister team who have a business called “Upholstery Transformations”. These two wonderful people have reupholstered numerous old armchairs for us for over 20 years, probably longer, and I remember, vividly, the time Anthony and I were choosing fabrics and Elva had to come outside to meet him as he was unable to get out of the car due to his Parkinson’s.
More recently, but still over five years ago, Craig reupholstered an armchair and a love-seat, both of which have been wonderful additions to my new home – my little cottage in Bunbury, Western Australia.
The two armchairs that Craig is now tackling are, in my mind, almost ‘farmchairs’ as they were used and used! I was even about to throw one of them out because it was so stained and dirty and worn and Jack, one of our dogs, had adopted it as his bed. I was tempted to simply throw it out until Ming exclaimed, “That was Dad’s chair!” Whoops.
Until recently, I had had both armchairs squished into my small cottage so it was quite a relief to relinquish one of them to Ming – his dad’s, Anthony’s. The other armchair is mine – a big, fat-armed, comfy chair with old-fashioned floral fabric. I have chosen a deep greeny-blue velvetty material to bring this chair back to life and I am so excited!
So, today Ming and Benita chose the fabric to recreate Anthony’s armchair and wow, it is perfect! Before and after pics coming in due course.
I was going to post this as a conversation with Anthony but I think it is time to dis-engage with the past and embrace the future and these two armchairs are part of that.
Thank you, Elva
Thank you, Craig
And we all chose our amazing fabrics from remnants!
jmgoyder 
I look forward to seeing pictures of the reupholstered chairs.
I love everything about this post…history, sentiment, nostalgia, loyalty, future, present, beginnings, love. Entwined. And wouldn’t Anthony be chuffed.
wonderful for so many reasons
Never had anything reupholstered but I remember my Nan & Pop doing so
That sounds like a very good decision regarding the chairs. I hope that ending the imaginary conversations will be useful too.
I would like to see the before and after shots.
I’m with Jane’s Heartsong, I too would like a before and after of these chairs. Refurbishing and reupholstering are always better than new. New never lasts very long and doesn’t have lasting memories attached to it.
So nice keeping useful, but memorable stuff!