Disclosure: I have no experience with upholstery, but would like to learn. I am an engineer, am "handy" (mostly automotive work, mostly Volvo 240s), and love restoring old beat-up things. My wife and I love mid-century modern design. This post is a bit long, but I figure the more information I put out there, the more helpful responses I will get.
Picked up a set of 6 chairs this past weekend (see pictures). Disassembled them, scrubbed with mineral spirits, and then applied some teak oil. They look pretty decent, probably should have sanded them down a little, but they don't need to be super smooth I guess.
They are covered in black vinyl right now, but it is pretty beat up, especially on the seats - lots of small cuts/tears/holes. Foam/padding feels good. Question 1: What sort of vinyl would you all recommend using to reupholster the chairs (My wife and I plan on using them as dining room chairs, with kids, so I think wool is out)? Based on scrolling through online pictures, I think black or a very dark gray would look great. You all have a lot more experience though. Looking for brand and source, mostly. I have looked on Modern Fabrics, and found a dark gray Maharam Ledger vinyl, with good wear numbers (>100k), but have no idea if it would work.
I have no experience with upholstery, so I talked to a local shop. I have three options:
1. They reupholster everything: $130/chair, plus materials ($15/yard surcharge if I bring my own). 1.5 yards per chair.
2. Only have the shop do the backrests: $65/ea. The seat bottoms look like something I could do myself, as a "first upholstery project". Could save a few hundred bucks.
3. Only reupholster the seats, and do them myself. Would have to find a black vinyl that matches the backrests decently (perhaps not too hard). Would save a ton of money.
Any thoughts or advice? I have done a considerable amount of researching, but there really isn't all that much out there. Sorry for the data dump!
-Michael
The seats are extremely easy to re-upholster. The backrest are more complicated.
Are the plywood foundations 100% solid? The seats would need to spring back up at you, no floppiness. And the backrests need to not wiggle at their attachment point. I have had to re-make new curved laminated ply seat foundations for these chairs because the plywood delaminated. And I should have made new backrests because the screws go into the sides of the plywood and there is not a lot to hold everything there, and you really can NOT just re-glue it went the holes are a bit broken out.
If the plywood is solid, AND all the backrest vinyl is in good condition, AND you can find a 99.9% match, then re-upholstering the seats would be very easy.
What Leif said, though I've repaired the backs on these where the screws ripped out---using wood hardener and epoxy and some serious clamping. I have to do one for my son soon, before reupholstering his set.
Also, look for a vinyl that isn't too stiff. I redid a single Moller chair to match the black vinyl on the rest of the set and the only black I could find was pretty stiff. It's a different seat than the Buchs but posed the same problem, which was doing tight curves neatly. You really want the corners of the seat to have no tucks showing and that will only be possibly with vinyl that is thinner rather than thicker, and that has some stretch to it. You don't have to get a high end brand, either. Whatever works.
Personally, I'd go for Maharam/Kvadrat Hallingdal wool in the darkest charcoal gray, Scotchguard the hell out of it, and make the kids sit at their own table if they spill food (haha, just kidding...sort of). But that's me--not much of a fan of black vinyl!
I am not a fan of black vinyl either. Spanky has impeccable taste too, so that is a valuable opinion. My less impeccable taste would be tempted to re-do them in black leather.
I will add that the seat backs are not hard to redo if you are comfortable doing a ladder stitch by hand, as that is a good way to re-attach the back. The way it was originally done is not something that is approachable for anyone outside the factory. There was a discussion about this point here recently.
Wow thanks for all of the info.
Plywood:
The plywood foundations are excellent. A previous owner tried to drive longer screws into the seat bottoms - all the way through the plywood in the case of one chair. I went to the hardware store and grabbed the proper hardware and replaced the old screws. Nice to sit without being stabbed 🙂 The seat backs do not wiggle at all, and are very solidly attached (not stripped out).
Upholstery:
The vinyl on the seat backs is in considerably better shape than that on the seat bottoms. It was very dirty, but cleaned up nice. Any chance you could point me to a place I could buy cheap but decent, black vinyl that is thin enough to use? We could probably afford a higher quality vinyl (if it matches), since I'll be going with the cheapest option (cover seat bottoms myself). I would love to do wool (in fact that would be our preference), but right now we really don't have the budget to do all that work. Same goes for leather - we need to make the chairs usable for awhile, then perhaps in a decade we'll go for a nicer material (or, maybe I can learn how to do it all myself and we can do everything sooner!). We are already out-of-our-minds-excited to have gotten such nice chairs for cheap - would never have expected to be able to afford our favorite furniture!
Also picked up a nice teak table from the woman. Says "Falster Dansk" on the bottom. Looks just like this: https://www.modernmobler.com/product/danish-modern-teak-round-expanding-.... Guess it was designed by Arne Vodder. Should clean up nice.
She has one of these ( https://www.1stdibs.com/furniture/tables/desks-writing-tables/iconic-fli...) that she might give to us, too.
Overall she was thrilled that someone would actually be interested in using the stuff.
Yes, definitely look up the other thread on reupholstering these. I do the back a very specific way that I worked out in redoing quite a few of these for people.
Vinyl sources: you can start with JoAnn Fabrics. They actually have a really nice vinyl that comes in black and dark brown that has a lot of stretch and is thin enough to work around the corners with no tucks. They have a bunch of vinyls--the nice one is $39.95/yd but they almost always have a 40% or 50% coupon for one cut of fabric on their website, which makes it pretty reasonable. It's the stuff that looks like leather if you look at the backside (but it's not).
If their black doesn't match closely enough, then you'll pretty much have to just get samples from online or visit other fabric stores in person to find something. Good luck with that. You might hit on something pretty great right away or it may take some hunting.
Take note of how far the line of original staples is from the edge of the seat. That's how close you have to staple in order to get the smoothest corners. And always pull the material perpendicular to the edge for each stapling point. Oh, and do rent or borrow a pneumatic stapler and compressor if possible---though tacking is ok, just takes a lot longer. Forget about a manual stapler or electric staple gun. The staples are heavier gauge and don't go in all the way.
Also, when working with vinyl, cut it plenty big, like enough so that there's at least 2" on the underside all around and then do temporary tacking closer to the edge of the vinyl. When you are using fabric you can tack close to the seat edge and just remove the tacks or staples without marring the fabric, but holes in vinyl are permanent and you don't want too many in one place. It can turn into a perforated line that will tear.
Mark, that is brilliant! I'd take it a step further and do an interesting pattern on the seat---something to complement the black backrest but which would also hide spaghetti sauce and mac & cheese.
I would never do such a thing on a set that I planned to sell, but hey---Michael plans to own them for the long haul and as we've said above, the seats are easy to do (and redo later). Have fun with it!
oh, one other thing---I highly recommend getting a Berry Staple Remover tool for removing the hundreds and hundreds of staples. I've tried a lot of other tools for this and the Berry thing is the best.
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