Friday, May 29, 2009

I Had it Made...


I was walking through the upholstery shop and saw this beautiful mahogany Baltimore Sofa with a special construction tufted back. This customer had a very specific idea in mind for their room. With our ability to custom make pieces, we were able to say yes to this family! I wish you could have seen how beautiful it was upholstered in this velvet fabric with the handsome finish that isso clear it allows the wood grain and inlay to shine through the tinted transparent layers of finish.
As I gazed upon it I thought about how each tuft was meticulously hand made. The upholsterer told me that it took most of the work day to hand tuft this one sofa's back. It takes patience and skill to hand tuft. So many other companies just button the "tufted" pieces now. I wish you could have watched him take his 15" long tufting needle and thread it with polyester twine with a hand made button. Then he carefully inserted the needle through the fabric and hypoallergenic filling through to the back of the piece. Then he carefully folded the fabric in the tuft and shifted the filling until he knew it was just right. Then he walked to the back of the sofa and carefully knotted the twine around the anchor to insure that in the years this family had the one of a kind Baltimore Sofa in their room they would never have an issue with buttons coming out or untied. Over and over this process was repeated until each tuft was perfected. The way HICKORY CHAIR employees anchors the twine is unqiue to our company. In all the years has upholstery been made, none of our customers have ever seen a technique like our craftsmen devised!
What charges my batteries is watching the careful attention to detail each of our craftsmen take. They know that when someone invests in a hand made Hickory Chair piece they expect the finest in quality and tailoring. With a 98.8% quality approval rate from our customers we feel we are on the right track!
This adaptation of a fine antique from the archive of Albert Sack is truly timeless. Albert Sack is the world's greatest authority of American antique furniture. From his archive we have the great fortune to work alongside him to select these timeless forms, like the Baltimore Sofa, whose great proportion and scale allow them to transcend time. In this very modern room scene the Baltimore Sofa is upholstered in two colors of silk and a very dark finish named Sable. This classic 18th Century form has become very modern in this application of finish and fabric.
Selecting pieces for your home is a very personal decision. No one should have to settle for off the shelf things when they could have just Had It Made!




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