Every chair has a story

We already learned about the horsehair in this chair, but today I began some prep work and removed a ton of carpet tacks that held the remnants of an old seat cover. I even removed them from the underside of the chair. Since we decided to keep the seat muslin and horsehair, both of which I assume are original, it is important to clean up the rails as much as possible. You would be surprised at how the smallest ridges can cause the new tape to lay funny. It is not typical to tape over an old cushion seat, so I am going to have to be extra careful. During my cleanup I noticed some repairs where the rockers are attached. Typically these transitional rockers have wooden pins connecting the rockers, but here they have been reinforced with metal and the wood has been repaired as well. The repair looks good and I think this chair will still hold up with light use. I still can’t find remnants of the decal so am not convinced it was refinished over. Transitional chairs were produced just as decals were being used so possibly they weren’t used on all chairs? Otherwise it has just been sanded off during an old refinishing job. As you can see from the pictures, I have also begun to “warp” the chair. This is the process of wrapping the webbing vertically around the front and back seat stretchers. Check back in a day or two for another update!