The New Old Chair

I thought it was time to welcome home our newly upholstered old chair (scroll to the end to see a BEFORE picture).  

Our little lady chair went away in early December to be re-upholstered and has returned looking beautiful and vaguely French, upholstered in a brand new velvet: 

I think the upholsterer did a fabulous job on the tufting (yes, the Christmas tree is still up!):

I had a difficult time choosing a colour, but I really like the result.  Naturally, I wanted to choose white or cream, but with a cat, I was afraid of soiling (he likes to rub against things).  I considered darker colours (slate blues, mustard) but didn't want to introduce another dominant colour in the room.  Ideally, I sought a grayed mocha brown (a medium brown) but could not find a nice velvet in that colour.

Also, the colour had to work with existing sage green furniture for, perhaps, a few more years.  Eventually I want a cream sofa, but for now we have green, so I chose a colour with a similar value to the green and also one that complemented it.

This rosy taupe has an old-world vibe and also works with the purple light fixture in the adjacent front hall (see below).  Basically this colour had to do it all (I swear I looked at 10,000 colours!):

Note that in the photo above, the gray chair to the right will be reupholstered next.  Oh, and I plan to get a smaller pillow for the new chair.  For styling purposes, I stuck this big white one on it!:

Although I wanted a taller chair in this location, I got so frustrated shopping for one.  I could not find a nice chair under $2500 that I loved, and cheaper ones I found online could not be sourced in Calgary to try out.  We like the size of this chair in its busy location, and it's super-comfy. It also swivels, so we can turn to look out the window, which we like to do.  So it simply made sense to salvage the chair, which while not being the height of fashion, was practical and had good bones.  I got a good deal on upholstery ($450 for labour) and spent about $600 on 8 yards of fabric.  It was an expensive chair 30 years ago (when David's mother bought it), so the foam and frame were in great condition.  So we saved it.

The BEFORE photo (below) shows the original, very faded colour.  Notice that on the new chair, I had the skirt made as long as possible to give it a more streamlined-look.  I also had them remove the buttons from the arms to give it a cleaner line.  I wanted a straight waterfall skirt, but it wasn't possible with the existing frame (which regrettably wasn't explained to me until after the upholsterer had ripped off the old fabric!).  

Anyway, I think it worked out well in the end and we have an elegant, compact new chair in this location!

What do you think?

Source Guide:  

Upholstery was done through Cushy Life in Kensington.  The fabric is Maxwell's Retreat Velvet in Taupe.