Bedroom Ironback

A small bedroom chair needed a new cover. The back was also floppy – repair work needed. Yet another exceptional and surprising project.

Another unusual issue was that the chair was actually an ironback – very common in Victorian times. But lack of evidence of many reworks suggested the chair was a lot newer.

At first sight, all looked fine. The existing loose cover, held on with hook and loop tape, was pulled off.

That revealed another, same fabric but worn, fixed cover, with buttoning.

The chair was turned on its back and the under cover removed, along with fixings to the cover fabric.

The chair was turned around and the outer back fabric removed. That exposed an old hessian back cloth and the fixings for the buttons.

The sewn on inner back was freed and the button fixings clipped. That also meant the seat skirt had to be removed too.

At the front, since the buttons that had held the inner back in place were now loose, the fabric was sagging.

The inner back fabric was removed.

Back of chair with out of place iron work

The seat fabric was next to be removed.

That allowed the structure of the seat to be revealed – this was an iron back. A real surprise.

Close up of dislodged and loose iron work

On closer inspection though, the iron work had lifted above the frame, resulting in the loose back. While this was the cause, the solution still needed to be found.

The chair was turned upside down again and the old webbing removed.

That allowed access to some broken fixings and the seat and back were separated.

With the fixings repaired and the chair rebuilt, new webbing was added and the springs secured.

The new cover fabric could now be added – starting with the buttoned inner back. The fabric was secured with long ladder stitching around the back to create tension.