Old Chairs Regain New Life

I have noticed during this depressed economy that more old chairs are coming out of basements, attics and barns, to regain their rightful places in the home once again. Relics of days gone by, these chairs are taking up residence in the home again and looked upon as objects of beauty.

It is hard to believe that at one time there were ever any caner’s so prolific that when the bottoms wore out that they were just replaced and put back into service again. Some of the chairs that I see coming to me are a good indication that even as much as 50 years ago that caning was not prolific at that time, or else these chairs would not have been put into the darkest corners of the home.

For the person with the chair, they are just chairs, however for me the caner, I see chairs come to me all the time that were handcrafted, not mass produced. Somewhere there was an artisan skilled in furniture making that decided to take wood and build a chair, some beautiful works of craftsmanship, each carefully and meticulously turned on the lathe, with great skill and measurement all details well planned out to create something of beauty for the home.  It is shameful that the love and skill that went into the creation of each of these works of art were packed away not to see the light of day for decades to come. The only bright spot, is the fact that they were not discarded, and that now during the depressed economy that people are looking at what they have and now deciding that it is better to fix what we have, instead of buying something new and in most cases of lesser quality than these works of art from yesteryear.

It is just not hand caning that I have seen coming out of attics, but pressed caning, rush, porch rockers just to name a few. This depressed time has made people to look at what they have, and realize that they do have things of value right in their own homes, overlooked and forgotten over the years.

The pictures in this post are chairs that I have found in shops, out by the road, and people have just left on my door step in hopes that I would replace the bottoms in them and find them a good home. Some as you can see are waiting for a bottom to be woven, some the caning has started on.

The black Rush Bottom Chairs were made in Italy and will have new replacement rush bottoms woven into them. There is a set of four of these. All of these will be for sale as soon as the bottoms are woven.

The rocker below is of black walnut, and was handmade. This is my favorite chair of all time, in all the 20 years that I have been caning, this is my favorite. It is of Shaker design, and as patiently been waiting for a bottom for some time. I have not decided if it will have a Rush, Splint, or Shaker Tape Bottom, as would have been common with Shaker Chairs of the period.

I would like to encourage all people to look through what they have in basements, attics and barns and see what works of art they have hidden away and make them beautiful and useful pieces of furniture once again in their homes.

Transformations- Hand Caned to Rush

Tags

Bird's Eye Maple, Caning, Cattail, Chairs, Hand Caning, Maple, packing, Rush, Tiger Maple, time capsule, Word Press Problems

Last week I had the pleasure to work on a set of chair that originally were hand caned. One would think that once hand caned always hand canned! Not so thanks to the ingenuity of a wood worker of yesteryear.

The amazing thing of removing a genuine rush or even fiber rush seat done decades ago; is that sometimes it can be a mini time capsule full of mystery and surprise. These two chairs were just that. The original genuine rush seats yielded its hidden treasures. Once the old seat was removed I found packing material in the form of crumpled newspaper clippings from a Troy New York newspaper, dated 1935! However being very brittle, it revealed to me that it was the used car section of the paper. Did you know that in 1935 you could buy a used 1929 Buick Sedan for $60.00?

The mystery of these chair do not stop here, they were originally hand caned, and re worked to fit a drop in rush seat. This would tell us that back in 1935 it was no easier for some to find a hand caner in those day either. So the chairs were modified to accept a drop in Rush seat. This is the first time I had seen a chair like this but as the pictures will show this worked out beautifully for these Bird’s Eye and Tiger Maple dining room chairs.

I am hoping to get pictures of the finished chairs to post, I did not because there were done in a Rush (pun) I will need to get with the customers and get pictures of their finished chairs, to post.

The Maple trim that you see going around the rush drop in seat, are the strips that cover the underlying hand caning holes.

This is the original drop in seat with genuine rush bottom, note the decorative corner blocks.

Please not the underneath side of a genuine rush seat, since the rope is actually acheived by laying cattail leave one upon the other in a graduated fashion and hand twisting them to form the rope as you continue to rush the chair, this results in the ends of the leaves protruding fromt he back of the chair seat. As this photo shows.

This photo shows how the drop in seat just slips out of its holding space in the center of the chair.

Bottom of the chair, reveals the hand caned chair seat, and the blocks placed in the corners to support the rushed drop in seats.

Canning Days

Tags

Allspice, Canning, ceyenne, Cinnamon, Cloves, Pork, Savory, Seckel Pears, Spiced, tomatoes, Vegetables

Days start early during canning season, as you need to can, but also must get the chairs done in the studio also. So days begin when the alarm goes off at 4 am., this week I had a nice visit with a wonderful friend at Pharsalia Plantation in Tyro, Virginia. She wanted to learn to use a pressure canner. I don’t think she has a fear of one now.

While there we canned a couple loads of tomatoes, when I went to leave she insisted that I take several jars home with me. The are a couple of the jars. We canned in quarts and half gallons. Please take a look at Pharsalia Plantation, nestled in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Pharsalia is a plantation home surrounded by orchards and vineyards, and exsquit flower gardens. It was a real pleasure to be there canning this week with Florence Morgan “Foxie”.

That day I also came home with a box of Seckel Pears, for those of you unfamilliar with this old variety of pear they are golf ball sized or a little larger in size, the are canned unpeeled and usually either pickled of spiced. I spiced and canned my pears, as in the pictures below.

These pears are spiced in a medium to heavy syrup, with whole allspice berries, whole cloves and stick cinnamon.

It was a day to stock up for the winter with the making of pork vegetable soup, all made from items in the freezer. This soup has a savory flavor and is perfect on a cold winters day.

This soup consists of slow roasted pork Boston Butt, along with potatoes, corn, peas, lima beans, plenty of onions, celery, ceyenne, garlic, with some pinot noir wine.

Pressed Cane and Rush Seats this Week

Tags

Austrailia, Cane, Chairs, Eucalyptus, Eucalyptus Chairs, Eucalyptus Furniture, Fiber Rush, Furniture, Genuine Rush, Hand Crafted, Oak, Pressed Cane, Rush, Word Press Problems

Eucalyptus Chair-Australia

Well the week ahead looks like we will be honing our skills on pressed cane and rush seats. In the studio we now have several oak chairs with pressed cane seats, in addition is several nice chairs from a customer in Northern Virinia, that were aquired while they were living in Singapore. These chairs were hand made in Australia and are of Eucalyptus Wood, they are finely detailed with Queen Anne Legs. These chairs are very elegant and have pressed cane seats, as well as backs, however just the seats need replacing.

There are also a pair of Oak dinning room chairs with small pressed cane seats, typical of this style of chair, as compared to the Eucalyptus chairs above, which have the entire sitting area of the chair in pressed/sheet cane.

The final chair in the studio in pressed cane is a black dinning chair, which need gluing and clamping in several places before the seat is replaced.

The Rush chair on hand to do at this time are Hitchcock in design, one having the drop in seat, meaning tht the framework that the rush is done on pops out of the chair, it is re-rushed and put back and held in place with screws. The second originally done in genuine rush (you twist the rope itself by hand) from cattail leaves into a hand twited rope and rush the chair from start to finish. This art while done years ago, has been widely replaced by the use of Fiber Rush (a tightly twisted brown kraft paper) that forms a rope, from that it is woven onto the seat or drop-frame. Asa “Genuine Rush is costly and time consuming and is usually reserved for heirlooms and museum quality work in today’s world.”

Oak Pressed Cane Chair

Seat Detail

The second picture shows a broken side piece that needs to be glued, and clamped and screwed back into place before the cane can be installed.

The two pictures on the left show an Oak Chair, which the pressed cane has totally worn out.

When the new cane has been installed, the cane will be stained to give it an aged appearance.

Rush Seats

Next on the list for this week is the replacement of two rush seats. One having a genuine rush seat that has deteriorated and will be replaced with Fiber Rush. Hitchcock style chairs usually incur a dis-assembly/re-assembly charge, as you have to remove button covers in the rear of the chair, also prying out wood strips from around the chair and removing a front decorative piece that is screwed into place, this forms a decorative as well as protective frame work around the rushed interior of the seat.  All of this takes time to do just to get to the seat itself before rushing can take place.

The second chair has what is known as a drop in seat, it has been rushed with fiber rush that has worn and broken on the front rail, this is the common place for most rush to weaken and brake, as it gets all the weight and pressure from the thighs rubbing along the front edge of the seat. The interior of this seat is removable, however in some ways it it makes it more difficult over the rushing taking place directly on the chair rails itself.

Hitchcock Style Genuine Rush Chair

Hitchcock Style Genuine Rush Close Up

Note the back, side and front wood trim that needs to be removed and replaced in order to get to the seat to be woven.

In some cases there are wooden dowels or buttons in the rear behind the seat that need to be removed, that cover screws to release the wood frame on this type of chair.

This seat is not that way, most of those have heavier wide trim going around the seat.

Underside of Genuine Rush Seat

The next chair is the Hitchcock style with the removable drop in seat, where the inner frame must be removed in order that the rushing can take place, while this seems to be a simple task, it is much easier to re-rush in the chair frame. Nails or small strips or blocks of wood need to be tacked into place where the top of the leg posts would be normally, this is to hold the new rush in place until the finished seat can be replaced into the chair.

Drop In Rush Close Up

Modern day manufacturer’s of Rush Style Chairs, that specialize in mass production often resort to the drop in seat, as the chair can be manufactured in one country, and the seat in another or in another totally separate area of the factory, the assembled in another.

Premium furniture manufacturer’s such as Suter’s Hadcrafted Furniture- Harrisonburg, Virginia and Chlore”s of Madison, Virginia still rush the chairs they make right in the chair and do not use drop in frames. I am sure there are many others, however this is still done mainly by manufacturer’s of Hand Crafted Furniture, not neccessarily mass produced.

Pictures of the finished chairs will be posted in a separate post, later this week.

Please Note: The layout of this article is not the way it is supposed to be. I have found that Word Press has a mind of its own. It shows you what you think you will get, publishes something entirely differnt. Please be patient until I can find out how to correct this.