Heirloom chairs arrive with stories attached, and our job is to keep them while making the chair usable again.
We start by stripping every layer, photographing each one so we understand how the chair was first made. Horsehair and coir are cleaned and reused where possible.
Loose joints are taken apart, cleaned and re-glued with hide glue, which can be reversed by a future restorer. Springs are re-tied by hand.
The new cover goes on last, and the original maker’s label, if there is one, goes back under the seat where it belongs.
