French sofa restoration project

This is a french sofa I restored for Caroline, one of my customers. It had been quite a while since someone had stripped it right back to the frame. The last person to recover the lounge was her mother in the 1970's, who used her handy home DIY skills to make the orange cover.

I decided to strip it right back to the frame as all the under layers of hessian were very fragile. The frame was very sound considering how old it was. The springs still had some life in them so I replaced the webbing and re stitched the springs back onto the seat.

Next step, I hand stitched the springs to a layer of hessian. Then I replaced webbing and hessian on the back and placed the original horsehair back on top. I hand stitched this in place with new padding on top. I attached the new fabric on the inside back. We decided on a lovely linen/cotton mix from Zepel fabrics (Bronco shark).

The inside back had to be tailor fit on with stitched seams in the corners to fit the contours shapes.

Next step was to go back to the seat and attach old horse hair plus some coconut fibre used to fill any gaps.

This was hand stitched in place with 2 rows of stitching along edge roll to hold padding around original edge roll. You can see in the below image how I used a double bayonet needle to do an invisible stitch row to hold padding towards the front. The needle comes through the middle of seat but the nylon twine does not come though to avoid bumps close to middle of seat.

Below is a before and after shot of the sofa. You can see how the faded dark grey colour keeps with the antique style but a fresh new look. And it really gives the wood detail front of stage! Upholstery fabric is Warwick Bronco Shark and trim detail is from Castle Trimmings.

I hope you enjoyed a bit of an insight into the process of restoring an antique sofa using traditional techniques which are becoming quite rare these days. Especially in Australia where furniture antiques are hard to come by.