Reupholstered Wingback Chair Ideas (One Meeeeelion pictures)

[LadySusan]

Okay, so here's my shapely chair for reference:



My favorite idea so far is to recover with blue velvet or even mohair.  I'm not sure if it will be a cat scratch/cat hair collecting nightmare but Emily Henderson does it all the time and she has cats and I want to be just like her when I grow up.  In fact, the wing chair as desk chair pic is hers.  Also as an aside, I tried using the wing chair as a desk chair and it wasn't glamorous; it was painful.  The chair seat is far too low so I went back to using a wooden dining chair.  So all those wing chairs pulled up to desks or dining tables are probably beautiful lies.





The next idea is to do grey in either velvet or a linen-look Crypton.  In this scenario the room would be various soothing shades of grey, off-white and brown.  Or maybe even a soft blue Crypton fabric.  Kind of natural and beachy but not too themey.







So those are my two favorite ideas.  But I found so many other pictures in my travels that I just copied them for your viewing pleasure.

I've always thought of wing chairs as very traditional but then I saw this pictures where they were recovered in white vinyl with black welting.  Vinyl would be so practical and I can see them in a variety of modern houses.  In a bright colorful house like the orange one below they would kind of fade into the background like the white doors and cabinet.  Or they could go in a white-painted house with either a clean, modern Room and Board sectional or a more eclectic Emily Henderson style mid-century modern mix.



And then there is leather.  So British and yet not comfy looking to me.





Or maybe you prefer toile for that French Country look?  (I am a sucker for white and blue toile and paisley prints.  If Crypton made one I'd be all over it.)



And finally, sometimes I feel I ought to go completely crazy and get a bold pattern but then I couldn't get fancy performance fabric.  Crypton only comes in a few patterns so far.  Also, what if I get sick of it in 5 years?

But will you just look how wild some of these patterns are?











And this concludes my lengthy wing chair post.  I hope you have enjoyed the show.

[auntie]

You made my night. So many fun ideas.

I'm not a fan of tufted wing chairs. They were ubiquitous and cheap back in the 1980s in mauve, mint green and Wedgewood. Tufts aren't really "authentic". Neither is velvet, but that's another story.

Back story on wing chairs, via a really fun docent I once had on a private tour at Winterthur. We think of wing chairs today as being a very formal piece of furniture- it's why we given them pride of place next to our living room fireplace, why we tend to cover them in sumptuous fabrics and we tend to position university presidents near them for their official portraits. But back when wing chairs were a thing, you often found them in a bedroom or the kitchen- they were a humble piece of furniture to be enjoyed in less formal parts of the house. One reason, is that often wing chairs were fitted out as commode chairs with a chamber under the bottom cushion. Our docent showed us several that were fitted out this way. If Thomas Jefferson were to visit the halls of UVA he'd likely snicker at the great men posed sitting in what was the 18th centery Toto toilet.

I love the grey stripe; it really highlights the lines of the chair. And it doesn't take itself too seriously. The pale ones are pretty, as a pair, but I think they'd be best highly accessorized. Otherwise they're kind of dull.

I like the contrast welting. DH and I stayed once in a hotel in Jamaica that was run by designers. The room we stayed in is featured in the opening scene of "The Mighty Quinn"- all of the furniture and soft furnishings were a white linen with black welting. It was gorgeous.

It's really hard to find someone to "do leather" and if you have cats, you'll want to pick a more distressed finish. DH has a favorite leather club chair in a broken in finish, it's practically bullet-proof. LOL, my mom dropped an entire beer on it last week and it cleaned with a soft cloth and Dove soap.

I love toile, but it's sort of "over" currently. LOL, I made my niece a strapless A-line out of that fabric in 2003 for her rehearsal dinner. I also have the larger scale Waverly black & white toile as panels on my upstairs landing window. They're old, but I still love them better than anything else I've seen.

I don't love the Hudson trading blanket for myself, but it is clever and fun. I like when the back is done differently than the seating surface if you will be placing the chairs to take advantage of being seen from both sides.Not wild about the choice of Ikat; it seemed forced ironic. But Ikat doesn't speak to me.

I'm not wild about the contemporary block print. It gives me flashbacks to the shiny 1970's Wal_tex wallpaper my dad hung in all our kitchens and baths. That's on me.

I don't care for the print of the last one. It kind of looks La-Z-boy which is a lower price point than those Hickory pieces.

I do love, seriously love, the modern riff on the Tree of Life. It's kind of a modern twist on something very traditional but freshened. If I had seen that when I was buying fabric last week, it would live at my house. What is it? I could always use my white canvas for a box spring cover and dust ruffle.

[compassrose]

DO THE BLUE VELVET. OR TEAL. Then I can live through you. ::drools::

I like tufting on everything, but that's me.

[pixy0stix]

If you don't like it in 5 years you sell and take the money to buy something else. Go big or go home.

[simpsongal]

Silly question, but is there a color scheme in the room? Other considerations besides cats?

I vote no tufts since the chair is sexy enough. I like the striped linen - very Ballard. Although a solid linen w/tufting & accent pillow would be nice too.

Velvet is sumptuous.

I'm getting ready to put navy velvet curtains in my dining room

[Mashara]

I'll try and take a of mine for you when I go home (as long as I can make the cat hair look nonexistent). Mine look really similar to the vertical grey stripe; the stripe is smaller and done in a pale grey green.

[juliachild]

I LOVE the blue velvet! Go big or go home.

[Mashara]

Got a pic.

Attachments:

[downtoearth]

I like velvet idea... blue or gray or even pink or orange. Pick one you like.

[adhdfashion]

Velvet is classic you can't go wrong. Skip the tufting.

[LadySusan]

auntie

The fabric is Josef Frank vegetable tree which goes for $1,500 SEK per meter.  Link.  Google tells me this is $170 per meter!

And I will never look at a wingback chair the same way again:

[LadySusan]

juliachild downtoearth compassrose adhdfashion

I'm still not sure if I will do tufting or no-tufting.  I think that no tufting makes traditional chairs like mine and the identically shaped orange ones below look more quiet, tasteful and traditional.  Maybe these would pop more in a bright white room with other colorful stuff?



I think no-tufting makes modern wing chairs with sleek legs look more sleek.





Sometimes though, depending on the legs and the velvet chosen it just looks like the 80's.





But sometimes it really works and looks traditional and hip and authentic and wonderful.

[juliachild]

I think that dark blue and the studs from the first picture in the thread would make it stand out/not be 80s. I'm not completely anti-tufting though.

[compassrose]

I personally simply prefer the tufting and know I wouldn't get tired of it for decades. In your original post, I think the second and third chairs (teal and gray) with many tufts look great, and the legs on the gray chair seem to match yours.

But if you pick a pattern, I would forgo the tufting.

[LadySusan]

Sept 2, 2015 22:06:24 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

If you don't like it in 5 years you sell and take the money to buy something else. Go big or go home.

I saw these and thought of you and your love of Halloween:

[LadySusan]

@bigreddog

I love it!  I probably couldn't get DH on board with hot pink though...

[LadySusan]

simpsongal

There's no existing color scheme so I'm free to do anything I want.

I have a a slate fireplace surround and wood floors and plenty of white trim.  I have a few pieces of medium-tone wood furniture from family: mostly 80's stuff.  We plan on a wall of built-ins using Ikea kitchen cabinets.  I need to pick a couch and curtains.

[LadySusan]

Sept 3, 2015 16:10:01 GMT -5 RamblingRose said:

Not a wing chair, but I love this fabric mixing.

You're killing me, RamblingRose!  I love Chairloom!  But mixed fabric is such an advanced maneuver!

[LadySusan]

I love it Mashara!  Approachable and not too themey.

[LadySusan]

Sept 3, 2015 15:22:55 GMT -5 @domerjen said:

I like the natural linen look in the gray/light blue. I like tufting, but I don't think it's necessary.

I would go bold w/ pillows, b/c if I spent $800 buying and restoring a chair I'd have it forever. b/c I'm a cheapo.

This is totally the MM thing to do.  It's my DH's preference as well.  Crypton sky (linen look stuff) is supposed to be seriously stain resistant and water washable, too.

That velvet tho...