rare Bramin lounge chair September 2016 UPDATE: The designer of this chair has been confirmed as Hans Olsen. scroll down to post #12 for a scan of the original furniture catalog featuring these with the design attribution. Thanks to Leif and Design Addict! I bought this rarely-seen lounge chair by Bramin of Denmark for myself because it was so comfortable and I loved the look. It consists of a styrofoam shelf with foam padding on a teak frame. However, that upholstery…it is a beautiful Maharam fabric called “Radiant” but even with the right type of padding on this chair, this fabric doesn’t have enough give to it to hug those curves. I stripped all the old foam and polyester batting off the styrofoam shell and put new foam on. The new fabric is Maharam/Kvadrat’s Hallingdal #830, which has blue threads in one direction and bright olive in the other. and snatched it up! See that big dart where the back meets the arm? And the general bagginess of the fabric?
You really need a slightly stretchy fabric for this kind of chair. This one is beautiful, but it’s not right for this chair.Tonus would be even easier to work with but I was swayed by the color combo of that weave! This is the underside of the seat. The entire outside of the chair is just one piece of fabric with the only seams being along the bottom sides where they don’t show. It takes a lot of smoothing and tugging and readjusting to get them just right, then they are hand stitched in place. The previous upholsterer just stretched the outside back fabric from seam to seam without trying to get it to conform to the contours of the shell. Or maybe he tried but gave up in frustration, which I could totally understand. The fabric has to be glued to the styrofoam shell where it curves around the back perimeter. This is tricky to do. And you can see here that those seams along the bottom sides are hidden so all you get is that wonderful curved expanse of beautiful fabric.
Overman sofa from Sweden I redid this Overman sofa recently. I know Overman production shifted to the US at some point but this was made in Sweden. The fabric is “Fleece” by Unika Vaev, which started out as a Danish company. The fabric is a reversible wool with bobbles of contrasting color wool in neat rows. It’s very soft and nubby and has plenty of give for those lovely curves. As usual, I forgot to take a before photo before I ripped into it. It was covered in this vinyl with a nice pebbled cowhide look, but it had split in a few places and there’s no fixing that. I like fabric on these better than vinyl anyway. Call Home Anthology at 410-744-0042 if you’re interested in either the sofa or the hand-embroidered crewel pillow, also by Modern Chair Restoration. Fiber rush vs. Danish Paper Cord Every once in awhile I see a Danish chair seat woven with fiber rush, or repairs done in fiber rush. Are they they same thing? Both are made of twisted brown kraft paper, like the stuff paper bags are made of.
But fiber rush, which is a substitute for real rush (as in, bulrushes, which are the leaves of cattail plants) is one ply. That means there’s only one strip of paper twisted to form the finished cord. It’s the one on the left in the photo above. Danish paper cord has three plies, or, rarely, two. You can make them out in the photo above but that’s what’s called “unlaced”, which just means that it’s been rolled so that the plies are flattened together. Unlaced cord is the one that’s easy to mistake for fiber rush. It has the same smooth texture as fiber rush. “Laced” paper cord has more definition to the plies. It looks more like rope. When you untwist the plies, the difference is striking. Even though the two are about the same diameter, you can see that the Danish paper cord has twice as much paper. It’s also a better quality paper. It has longer fibers that withstand a lot more wear than those in the fiber rush. I don’t know if you can use Danish paper cord in chairs that are meant to be done in fiber rush.
But don’t use fiber rush on chairs that are supposed to have Danish paper cord. It will wear out and break much sooner along the inside top edge of the front rail. Authentic Danish cord breaks there too but it usually takes a few decades. Overman chair gets a fresh start for spring This chair made in Sweden by Overman has an appealing shape, but boy was that vinyl tired-looking! Knoll’s Classic Boucle in Crimson suits the chair’s personality perfectly, in my opinion. Originally the seams were machine stitched and then top stitched. I hand stitch the entire perimeter instead, which gives it smoother, almost seamless look. Hand stitching is done by inserting a curved needle into each side of the seam at opposite points. This is called a ladder stitch. After you do 6-8 stitches, you pull the thread tight and the seam closes up and nearly disappears–like magic! (Thanks to Home Anthology for providing the setting for my photos of the finished chair.)
Wegner CH25 woven chair This Wegner CH25 chair had the usual broken strands that come with age and use. It also arrived in pieces but a competent repairman took care of those issues, leaving me free to weave. The variation in weave on the back is there to hide the knots. The slots at the top and bottom (not shown) enable you to continue the weave pattern in front while doing the variation in back. I never get tired of woven paper cord. roped folding chairs, Yugoslavia edition There are a lot of these folding chairs from Yugoslavia around. They were made with a tinted clear finish that is almost always scratched and scuffed, and the original hemp/cotton cord is inevitably frayed and worn. I’ve always wanted to ebonize a pair of them and finally I got the chance. These are done in Danish paper cord, which wears better than the original cord. I also did a more Danish-style weave. (Photo courtesy of Rob Degenhard at Home Anthology). I just love the look of the natural kraft paper color against the soft black of the wood.
Ulferts Fabriker lounge chair from Sweden This once-handsome chair was made by Ulferts Fabriker in Tibro, Sweden, according to the tag. Reupholstered in Maharam/Kvadrat’s Hallingdal wool hopsack, it’s ready for the next few decades! The original wool fabric was completely worn through in places and the foam of course was shot. The teak frame had some scuffs and was a little dull and grimy but not nearly as bad as the fabric. It’s surprising what a little teak oil and #0000 steel wool can do. I couldn’t find much about this company online. Obviously they exported some things to the U.S. because this label is American. This is colorway 227. It looks darker on Maharam’s website. It has golden brown yarns in one direction and light heather gray in the other. I think it looks gorgeous with the old teak. One of the things I really like about this chair is how square it is but with most of the lines softened by just a bit of curve.
It has a really solid look without being hard at all. comfy little side chair I got this little chair awhile back and of course sliced open the back before remembering to take a photo or two! I was just dying to know what padding it had originally because there sure wasn’t anything there when I got it. (Turns out it was latex foam over jute webbing, and the foam had dried up and crumbled to dust, leaving some very slack fabric.) I added new padding all over. The back might be a little thicker than it was originally but it’s SO comfy now. The original fabric was a beautiful ribbed wool epingle (tiny loops of wool in sculpted rows). Unfortunately it was completely worn out in places or I would have considered reusing it somehow. I hope I find some more someday. I thought the chair might have been made in Sweden because it has the exact same interlocking coil springs as another Swedish chair I did recently. But then I found this tag in German in the springs.
Maybe Swedish furniture makers used German-made springs? The new fabric is Knoll’s Classic Boucle in a soft red. This chair will be available at Home Anthology in Catonsville, MD, in September. Watch their New Arrivals page for more information. These teak monkeys belonged to a friend. The one on the left is missing his ears and upper…jaw? Is that what that part is called? They aren’t the Danish monkeys by Bojesen, just adorable vintage Japanese knock-offs. I cut new ears out of a 1/4″ thick oak board, which fortunately is available off the shelf at Home Depot. The upper jaw-mouth-part-thing is one of those wooden half-eggs that you get at craft stores, carefully measured and then cut in half again and stained to match. He could have had a bit more underbite, but oh well. Heywood Wakefield pouf ottoman gets a fresh new look Obviously this was taken after I’d gotten started on taking the thing apart but that’s exactly how the fabric looked.