Antique armchairs: what to keep when they’re reupholstered

First, what kind of piece is it?

A chair you want to sit in every day is not the same as one with historic or collectable value. In the first case use comes first; in the second, what has to be saved. For pieces like that, the Institute of Conservation, Icon, keeps a public register of accredited conservators in the UK, searchable by type of object and specialism.

It is a question to settle before anything is taken apart, because whatever is thrown away when a chair is stripped can’t be got back.

What the holes tell you

Traditional upholstery is held with tacks or nails, and each reupholstery adds its own. Elizabeth Lahikainen, an upholstery conservator, set it out in the journal of the American Institute for Conservation: every reupholstery puts thousands of new holes into the frame. After several generations the rails begin to fail, and the edges lose wood from all the tacking and untacking.

Those same holes are also a record. An exhibition at the Colonial Williamsburg museums in Virginia showed how to read them. The spacing of the earliest nails shows whether a seat had a firm, upright edge or a softer, rounded one, and a fibre trapped under a stray tack can reveal the colour, fibre and weave of the original cover. The approach of Leroy Graves, the museums’ conservator, restores a piece’s earliest appearance without marking the frame or disturbing the upholstery that survives.

The stuffing isn’t always thrown away

In 2022 Paxton House, a historic house in Scotland, conserved a sofa that Chippendale made for it between 1789 and 1791. Opening it up, they found it had been reupholstered only twice since its original cover, around 1870 and in the 20th century. All the original horsehair stuffing was reused, and the sofa got back the shape it was designed with.

The National Railway Museum applied the same thinking to the horsehair-stuffed cab seats of the locomotive Mallard. They are conserved with the same skills and tools that were used to make them.

The UK rules and pre-1950 pieces

In the UK, the Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988 require domestic upholstery to pass ignition tests. But regulation 4 excludes furniture made before 1950 and the materials supplied to reupholster it. Worth knowing if you are bringing a chair over from Britain, or know the rules and are expecting the label that new furniture carries.

What to ask before work starts

With these answered, it is clear what will be kept and what won’t:

The piece

Has it historic or collectable value? Does it want a conservator or an upholsterer?

Before it’s stripped

Will it be photographed, and will scraps of the original cover and stuffing be kept?

The frame

What state are the edges in? Can they take more tacks?

The stuffing

Can the original be reused? If not, what replaces it?

The cover

A match for the original, a period cloth or a modern one?