18/10/2026
Confessions of an Upholsterer: The Captain's Chair
Sometimes, a chair is so much more than a chair.
A couple came to view my house recently. She loved it. He, however, wasn't terribly keen on the trains passing by. I mean, we do live on Station Road. You'd think there might have been a clue somewhere.
Anyway, whilst looking around my workshop, the lady spotted that I restore and upholster chairs. She told me about a captain's chair belonging to her elderly father, who had recently moved into a retirement home. He'd spent years sitting in it, doing the paperwork for his plumbing business.
There wasn't room for the chair in his new home, and she had taken it to her house and was keen to get it restored. So I gave her my card and asked her to email me some pictures.
Then I discovered they weren't buying my house.
And, being the entirely mature and professional individual that I am, I wasn't exactly rushing to help her. Her enquiry went into my pending pile. You know the one. The pile of things I'll get around to when I feel like it. 🙄
But the universe had other plans.
The following day, another client called to tell me that the fabric for her chair was out of stock. Her job would have to be postponed by a couple of weeks, leaving an unexpected gap in my schedule.
Suddenly, that captain's chair looked rather appealing.
It arrived later that afternoon, and I found some beautiful burgundy Italian leather left over from a previous commission. We were in business!
First, though, came the cleaning. Good grief. This was one of the filthiest chairs I've ever encountered. Years of grime had become embedded in the woodwork, and it took three goes with my Dad's secret cleaning recipe to get it looking respectable again.
Even then, I deliberately stopped short of making it look brand new.
I could see where her father's hands had rested on the arms. There was a stubborn black mark on the backrest that I suspect had something to do with years of working in dirty overalls. That mark wasn't going anywhere!
And do you know what? I didn't want it to.
Those marks are part of the chair's story. They speak of years of work, of a man running his own business, of a chair that had been used and loved rather than simply admired from a distance.
My job wasn't to erase all of that. It was to give the chair a new lease of life whilst keeping its history intact.
When my client collected it, she loved it.
It's still her dad's chair. It's just had a little do-over. Now she can have it in her own home, where it can continue to remind her of him with love and affection.
And that, for me, is one of the real pleasures of what I do.
I don't just restore furniture. Sometimes, I help people hold on to a little piece of their history.
Although, for the record, I still haven't forgiven her for not buying my house. 😂
