A new chair for Jane

You may remember that this is the little chair given to me by my lovely Auntie Mavis many years ago, and I had originally planned on it being in the guest bedroom.  However, since my last post about said bedroom waaaaay back in January, I have changed my mind ~ "oh what a surprise, Sharon!" I hear you say 😉

It really is a sweet little chair made, I think, from oak.  I believe it could be a nursing chair, possibly Victorian or Edwardian.  According to Wikipedia:

"In Victorian times the nursing chair was a low seated partially upholstered chair.  Nursing included caring for children as well as breastfeeding.  The low seat of the chair allowed the mother, who would have been wearing a stiff corset, to interact with small children without bending over."

I hadn't really examined the underside for quite some time, so hadn't realised just how much the old fabric was perishing.  What prompted me to have a good look was all the little bits falling onto the new bedroom carpet!

I don't think this was the original fabric ~ it has more a look of the 1930s or 1940s.  Despite how nasty it was looking when I took off the loose covers, it must have been rather lovely when it was all clean and new.

Although the loose covers were not to my taste, they were made extremely well.  The cover on the back was fastened with a row of hooks and eyes, affixed to cotton tape, down each side ~ no velcro in sight LOL

Ta-daa!  Doesn't the chair look wonderful with it's new upholstery!  The lovely Doris from Orkney Upholstery has done a fabulous job, using a pair of vintage curtains I spotted on Ebay a few years ago.  I never got round to using them in our old house, and the windows here at St Abbs are too tall for them.  They are not an upholstery-weight fabric but as the only person sitting on the chair will be Jane, Doris was happy to use them 😊  

I decided not to do anything about the finish of the wood in the end, other than give it all a good clean and polish before it went to Doris; the wear is part of it's vintage charm and shows how well used it's been over the years.

The underside now looks neat and tidy ~ no more bits of perished fabric falling on the carpet.

And here's the little lady herself 😊 Jane is very pleased with her "new" chair and has a grand view of the bedroom.  Although she still looks like a baby I've had Jane since I was two, so she is at least 59 years old now.  The teddies (Arthur and Fred who I've had since I was a baby, and Archie who was Sam's when he was a baby) hang out on the bed, so Jane has the perfect vantage point to keep her eye on them and make sure they behave themselves 😉